导读:《经济学人》11月10日刊登的 - 腾讯20周年 | 自由微信

导读:《经济学人》11月10日刊登的 - 腾讯20周年

Original 涓尼Gene 涓尼英语 2020-01-24

腾讯20周年啦

大家在11月11日看到朋友圈大量转发的有关腾讯20周年的文章、帖子、图估计就是上面的画风：腾讯的办公地点从原来一个小小办公室发展成为深圳市地标级建筑的摩天大楼。“腾讯20周年”这个话题的热度我反正是蹭不了了，因为那时候在忙别的事，拿到《经济学人》iBooks版时也比较晚，并且我写这篇文章的初衷无关热点热度，就只是想静静地通过《经济学人》这篇讲腾讯的文章来知道一下腾讯公司到底发展得怎么样了。

执笔写文的凌晨，我翻开11.10《经济学人》的印刷版，看了一遍 Tencent at 20 | WeFlat ，读下来的感觉，我听到的不是庆生的雀跃，而是一些大众读者不曾关注或者不曾了解的数据和情况，所以在此我打算从一个新的角度来看待“腾讯20周年”以及尝试导读《经济学人》的这篇文章。

大家先来看下这张题图，还算精致的蛋糕被一口吹气吹得快要倒下桌面，这可不见得是什么好事。

果不其然，在印刷版57页中下部放的一张图表，显示的是腾讯下跌的股价情况，深蓝色最下方的曲线就是腾讯的，就在它过生日的这个月初，股价跌至2018年的历史新低，但后续又有所回升。

(以下节选不对生词进行解释，因为可以自己查字典)

It would be no surprise if Tencent were feeling touchy as it approaches its 20th anniversary on November 11th. Its shares, traded in Hong Kong since 2004, have fallen by 28% in 2018 (see chart). This time last year it was the first Asian company to be worth half-a-trillion dollars, hitting a record valuation in January of $573bn. It has since shed $218bn, roughly equivalent in value to losing Boeing or Intel.

从这段引用中我们可以学到股价“shares”下跌的单词“to fall by 28%”和“to shed $218bn”。最后一句中的“Boeing”和“Intel”，分别是总部设于伊利诺伊州芝加哥，世界最大的航天航空器制造商“波音”（The Boeing Company）和总部位于美国加利福尼亚州圣克拉拉的，世界上最大的半导体公司“因特尔”（Intel Corporation），而腾讯目前下跌的股价总值2180亿美元，可以拿去收购波音或者因特尔公司了。
股价下跌究其原因，可以来看下我截取的这几小段：原因一：政府开始监控微信聊天内容，用户对此有意见

the result of a move by Tencent in April to sanitise content, after a crackdown on popular online platforms by government regulators,

原因二：政府加强干预青少年玩网游，网游销售业绩必然因此下滑

The company posted its first quarterly profit decline for nearly 13 years in the three-month period ending in June. A regulatory hold-up that was blocking it from charging for new video games was the chief culprit, it explained.

The government suspension, which began in March without explanation, had been expected to ease in the autumn. Analysts now assume that Tencent will need to tough it out until the second half of 2019. Even once game approvals start up again, the government has said that their number will be limited. To allay Communist Party concerns about the mental and physical health of young gamers, Tencent is also having to curb gaming time and set up a system of user-identity checks.

原因三：阿里巴巴跟腾讯一直在斗，为了保持领先，主流平台自身必须加大投入，留给自己缓冲的余地也变得越来越小

Tencent has been backing promising startups in a race with Alibaba to find new users and sources of growth, battling indirectly in areas as varied as food delivery and online education. In some, such as cloud computing, the pair compete directly.

China’s maturing internet sector is becoming “a zero-sum game”: dominant platforms are having to invest more to stay ahead and so their margins are shrinking.

原因四：小程序基本不赚钱，新晋小巨头“字节跳动”是腾讯的一根刺，哪怕腾讯推出“微视”，也感觉像是在模仿抖音

For now, however, its revenue from such mini programs and other built-in services is still “close to zero”, notes David Dai of Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm. Meanwhile rivals have introduced their own offerings of mini programs. Among them is Bytedance, a newish giant that has young Chinese hooked on its flawlessly addictive video and news offerings, curated with artificial-intelligence technology. It is a thorn in Tencent’s side.

In particular, the way in which Bytedance is capturing very young users, as well as young talent, makes Tencent look increasingly grizzled. To increase its appeal to youngsters, Tencent in April revived a short-video app it had shut down, called Weishi, and made it a near-copy of Bytedance’s wildly popular Douyin app.