Zhang Yida, Lei Dongming, and Lan Lan embarked on a journey to Indonesia.
News has come from Indonesia, and the three investee companies have invited Rui Xiang to come over to discuss the important matter of cooperation in setting up an electronic payment company.
So this time, Zhang Yida personally led the team there, which shows that he attaches great importance to this matter.
At the beginning of the year, Leech Financial Services Group had already made its first breakthrough in India - Paytm.
Naturally, Zhang Yida is not willing to lag behind, and is planning to use Indonesia as the starting point to gradually promote the electronic payment business to the entire Southeast Asia region.
Mobile payment can be regarded as the blood of the modern financial industry.
Without mobile payment, many businesses such as online financial management and online lending cannot be carried out.
Financial management and lending are not something users use every day, but mobile payments can.
Therefore, developing an electronic wallet APP is the only way to increase user stickiness.
As long as the development of e-wallets is on the right track, other Internet financial services will be a matter of course.
In the first class cabin, Lan Lan flipped through the information provided by Temasek. After flipping through it for a while, she asked in surprise:
"Mr. Zhang, Indonesia has a population of 260 million, but the Internet coverage is less than 50%? The penetration rate of smartphones is less than 20%?"
"Isn't this normal? The natives are delicious but lazy. Now they are in the transition from PC to mobile Internet era, and there are many opportunities.
No, they just skipped the PC and came directly to the mobile Internet era.
If you look at the growth rate of their smartphone penetration rate, the annual growth rate is basically more than 10%.
In five years at most, the penetration rate of smartphones will reach over 70%.”
Zhang Yida thinks very far. Indonesia's backwardness is only temporary. It is currently only equivalent to the domestic mobile Internet level of 10-11 years, basically 5 years behind the country.
But in the future, it will definitely develop slowly. At this time, the layout is just stuck, and we can reap the dividends of the development of mobile Internet.
“Indonesia’s population structure is very young. The total population is only one-fifth that of China, but the young population between the ages of 15 and 35 is as high as 90 million, accounting for one-third of China’s population of the same age.
A large young population means a high receptivity to new things.
Establishing a joint venture e-wallet is only the first step. Once the number of users increases, domestic online financial management, online lending, and consumer installments will be transplanted."
Indonesia is the most populous country after China, India and the United States, so the Internet demographic dividend is very large.
If it weren't for the fact that he was unfamiliar with the foreign country, Zhang Yida would definitely have gone it alone.
“It’s hard to get started! Less than 30% of Indonesian people have bank cards, and less than 5% have credit cards.
Moreover, their country is a country of thousands of islands, and transportation is very inconvenient, making everything very troublesome."
Lan Lan feels that Mr. Zhang is too optimistic and wants to come to Indonesia for financial management and loans, but many basic conditions cannot be met.
“It is very difficult to implement. As far as the mobile Internet infrastructure is concerned, it is very poor.
Until mobile payment reaches tens of millions of users, other businesses will not be able to develop at all.
Also, their country’s credit reporting system is very poor, so we have to build our own data model to lend money.”
Zhang Yida doesn't want to think too much, he will first implement the payment.
The Indonesian government also issued many "cashless payment" policies and calls last year, which is very supportive of the development of mobile payment.
After a 6-hour flight, the plane landed at Jakarta Airport in Indonesia.
Zhang Yida and his group left the airport, and Gojek sent several cars to greet them.
The leader is Nadeem Makarim, the founder and CEO of Gojek. He looks about thirty years old, wears glasses, has slightly curly hair, and has deep eye sockets. He does not look like an Indonesian native. Zhang Yida guessed that he is of mixed race.
.
This Makarim is still very cool. Zhang Yida remembers that in the second half of 2019, in his previous life, this Makarim gave up business and entered politics, entered the Indonesian cabinet, and served as the Minister of Education.
Of course, on the one hand, he created the largest unicorn in Indonesia, but on the other hand, it is also inseparable from his family background.
It is said that he comes from a prominent Indonesian family, and his grandfather was a member of the delegation that helped Indonesia gain independence from the Netherlands at the 1949 Hague Conference.
His father is a famous lawyer and his mother is an anti-corruption activist.
Makarim shook hands with Zhang Yida. He did not speak Chinese, but as an MBA from Harvard Business School, his English was still very fluent. He welcomed him in English:
“Welcome distinguished guests from China! I hope you have a wonderful trip in Jakarta.”
The co-founder next to Makarim, Kevin Aluvi, has a Chinese appearance, wears glasses, and is polite. He said in Chinese with a heavy accent:
"Mr. Zhang, welcome you and your team to Jakarta."
Zhang Yida's English was also pretty good. He greeted Makarim in English and chatted a few words with Aruvi in Chinese.
Considering that Aruvi was Chinese, Makarim asked Aruvi and Zhang Yida to get into a car and introduced Zhang Yida to the local customs on the way.
In the car, Zhang Yida looked through the car window at the motorcycle groups on both sides of the road. He looked carefully and saw a lot of interesting scenes.
Pointing to a motorcycle rider wearing a green vest and a green helmet with the "Gojek" logo printed on both the vest and helmet, he asked Aruvi, who was sitting next to him in the back row:
"Kevin, is that knight an employee of Gojek?"
“Like Didi in China and Uber in the United States, we also adopt a platform model.
Users request a ride on the mobile app, and we dispatch the order to these motorcyclists.
We draw a certain fee from it, which is called commission in Chinese terms.”
Aluvi smiled in a naive manner, and although his accent was a bit thick, Zhang Yida could barely understand it.
"Then which payment channel is your connection with?" Zhang Yida asked again, he was very interested in this issue.
“T petku, XL Tunai or credit card payment, and cash payment.
The first three were launched by our country's telecom operators a few years ago."
Aruvi’s words gave Zhang Yida a clearer understanding of the development of electronic payment in Indonesia.
It is indeed very backward. Domestic telecom operators are still providing electronic payment channels, and there are not even a decent e-wallet Internet start-up company.
"If you pay in cash, how do you draw commission? What should I do if the driver evades the bill?
What I mean is that there are drivers who receive passenger fares but conceal them or refuse to pay them."
Ruixiang is also a shareholder of Gojek, and Zhang Yida also wants to know about Gojek's operations.
"Currently, many passengers still pay their fares in cash, so we will gather the drivers at one point every day and have a dedicated person collect the cash.
As for the driver hiding the fare, he cannot hide it. Our APP records whether the passenger paid or not.
There was a small number of drivers who refused to pay commissions, but we immediately stopped dispatching orders to them the next day."
Seeing that Zhang Yida seemed to be very interested in Gojek's operating model, Aruvi introduced it to him.
“In Indonesia, due to road conditions and economic conditions, people’s main mode of travel is motorcycles.
As for cars, the ratio is not high, less than 80 cars per 1,000 people.
So unlike Didi and Uber, our taxi-hailing software is mainly about cars.
We mainly use motorcycles to hail taxis, and cars as a supplement.
In the future, we will also develop in areas such as takeout, product distribution, and financial services..."
Aruvi was very talkative and told Zhang Yida a lot.
Zhang Yida thought to himself: Do you want to seek investment from me again? He kept painting a pie for me.
“Grab is growing rapidly! I think it is very likely to become your mortal enemy in the future.
Have you ever analyzed each other?"
Zhang Yida also began to test each other. In the previous life, the two companies were bitter rivals. They both started out as taxi-hailing businesses, and then branched out into O2O food delivery, goods delivery, mobile payment and other fields.
The businesses of the two companies can be said to be highly overlapping, and their markets are oriented to the entire Southeast Asia region.
"I know that company in Singapore! They started their business early and went online in 2012.
Now it has received Series D financing and has become a unicorn.
They have great ambitions. After occupying the markets of Singapore and Malaysia, they have now set their sights on countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
We want to accelerate development, but we are limited by funding."
When it comes to Grab, Aruvi looks very serious. He also knows that this is a strong enemy.
Although it has not yet entered the Indonesian market, it is estimated that it will not be long.
“Mr. Zhang, you are so successful in China, is there any way you can introduce some investments to us?
For example, Penguin, Goudong, Magnesium Tuan, Didi and others.
So far, we have only completed two rounds of financing totaling US$15 million.
This size is more than 10 times different from Grab."
The tail of the Aluvian fox has finally been revealed. What I have said above is to pave the way for investment.
"Yes! I'm very familiar with the CEOs of several of their companies, and I can recommend them to you if you have any suitable opportunities.
But there is a prerequisite, that is, you must develop business data.
Otherwise, if I introduced you here, I might not like you and invest in Grab."
Zhang Yida said sincerely that introducing investors to Gojek was just a smooth process.
In fact, Zhang Yida does not need to introduce it. In the future, several Internet giants will come to invest in Gojek.
Of course, it's better to just be accommodating.
"Thank you, Mr. Zhang. I didn't expect that, Mr. Zhang, you have such extensive connections in China."
Aluwei's eyes narrowed with a smile. Zhang Yida's strength was a bit beyond his imagination.
"Mr. Zhang, I heard that you have many unicorn companies in China.
Can you tell me something?"
Aluvi had searched for some information about Zhang Yida on the Internet before, but it was not very comprehensive. He only knew that Ruixiang Group was a unicorn with a valuation of over 10 billion US dollars.
As for Zhang Yida's other industries, I don't know much about them.
Zhang Yida picked up his fingers and counted seriously.
"Oh my God!"
Aruvi was a little fat, and the way he covered his chin with his fingers looked a bit like Xiao Yueyue, which made Zhang Yida want to laugh.
"The current valuation of Ruixiang Group is US$20 billion, Yimin Net Finance is US$3 billion, Huimin Bicycle is US$2 billion, Pate.com, Huinong Dai, Yimin Wealth, Ruimin Financial Management, Yimin Loan, Pin
Duoduo and DouShi are both valued at over US$1 billion.
Well, I have these 10 startups under my name.
There is also Huayi Capital, which holds 66.7% of the shares, and is a venture capital investor. It has raised three phases of funds, which adds up to several billion yuan!"
Aruvi was stunned and thought: Is it so easy to start a business in China? Should I go to China to develop in the future?