(本文选自《经济学人》20210313期)
背景介绍：
随着智能手机的迅速普及，电子商务正在快速发展，网购逐渐成为了人们生活的一部分，并且成为了人们购物的首选。而说起电子商务，就不得不提到拼多多，创立于2015年的拼多多在短短6年时间便成为了中国电子商务的一大巨头。那么，拼多多究竟为何能够迅速崛起呢？
E-commerce profits may become harder to make
The Amazons and Alibabas are not as
impregnable
as they might seem
The e-commerce company that retailers talk about most these days is neither Amazon, the American juggernaut, nor Alibaba, China’s biggest.
如今，零售商们聊得最多的电子商务公司既不是美国巨头亚马逊，也不是中国巨头阿里巴巴。
It is Pinduoduo (PDD), a Chinese firm that started in 2015 as an online food supplier, but whose success has driven its market value above $200bn. Last year it was China’s fastest-growing internet stock, rising by 330%.
人们聊得最多的是拼多多，这是一家创立于2015年的中国公司，最初是一家线上食品供应商，随着拼多多大获成功，其市值目前已突破2000亿美元。去年，拼多多成为中国股价上涨最快的互联网公司，增幅高达330%。
PDD attracts attention for two reasons. One is its business model. David Liu, vice-president of strategy, explains that it has ridden the rise of smartphone
penetration
in China to create an e-commerce experience in which people club together to buy products from robot vacuum-cleaners to bananas.
拼多多之所以引人注目，原因主要有两点。其一是商业模式。拼多多战略副总裁九鼎解释称，拼多多借助智能手机在中国加速普及的东风，创造了一种新的电子商务模式，人们能够一同拼购从扫地机器人到香蕉的各种商品。
During the pandemic this has expanded into a fast-growing business across thousands of towns and villages, in which PDD’s users gather to bid for shipments of local farm produce at bargain prices.
在疫情大流行期间，拼多多还发展了一项范围遍及成千上万个城镇和村庄的迅速增长的业务，在这些城镇和村庄，拼多多用户一起以便宜的价格购买直接送上门的地方农产品。
Some term this “community group-buy”. Mr Liu calls it “interactive commerce”. It is one of the hottest parts of the Chinese internet.
有人将其称为“社区团购”，九鼎则称之为“互动商务”。社区团购是目前中国互联网最炙手可热的一门生意。
The second is the way PDD has shattered the myth of an impregnable fortress surrounding the titans of online shopping. Until a few years ago, China’s e-commerce market seemed a two-way contest between Alibaba and JD.com, a rival platform. No longer.
其二是拼多多打破了电商巨头拥有坚不可摧的堡垒的神话。就在几年前，中国电子商务市场似乎还是阿里巴巴与京东之间的双雄对决。如今情况已然不同。
Elinor Leung of CLSA, a brokerage, expects PDD’s share of online retail in China to overtake that of JD in 2021. She expects the number of users to surpass Alibaba. And although PDD shells out huge subsidies to entice customers from poorer parts of China to its app, she thinks it may turn profitable this year.
经纪公司里昂证券的梁爱琳预计，2021年，拼多多在中国在线零售市场的份额将超过京东。她预计拼多多的用户数量也将超过阿里巴巴。虽然拼多多投入了巨额补贴来吸引中国贫困地区的用户使用该应用，但她认为拼多多今年或将实现盈利。
Remarkably, it has done this less by displacing its bigger rivals than by tapping parts of the market they have been unable to reach. Although online sales of groceries have rocketed during the pandemic, less than a tenth of the 8.1trn yuan ($1.25trn) farm-produce market is bought and sold digitally.
值得注意的是，拼多多的成功是通过打开规模更大的竞争对手尚未触及的市场，而非争夺其既有市场。虽然在疫情期间，食品杂货的在线销量猛增，但在8.1万亿元的农产品市场中，线上交易仅占不到10%。
“We are continuing to grow the pie,” says Mr Liu. That lesson applies elsewhere too. However sewn up a market looks, there is opportunity for upstarts because e-commerce is at an early stage of development.
九鼎表示：“我们正在继续把蛋糕做大。”这种经验也适用于其他业务。无论一个市场看起来前景如何，新晋者都将有机会，因为电子商务仍处于早期发展阶段。
(红色标注词为重难点词汇)
本文翻译：Vinnie
校核：Vinnie
编辑：Vinnie
如果说在几年前，也就是阿里巴巴与京东之间双雄对决的时候，几乎没有人相信会有一家新兴电子商务公司能够与两大巨头相抗衡。然而，就在去年，后来者拼多多的市值已经超过了京东，成为了中国第二大电子商务公司（同时也是第四大互联网公司）。究其成功的原因，除了在商业模式上的创新，很重要的一点在于其抓住了下沉市场的机遇。
impregnable
[ɪmˈpreɡnəbl] adj. 坚固的；牢不可破的
penetration
[ˌpenəˈtreɪʃn] n. 渗透；突破；侵入
