A new phase of global competition has broken out between a handful of massively wealthy US and Chinese internet companies — with consumers and businesses the beneficiaries of their services.
少数几家财力雄厚的美国和中国互联网公司之间爆发了一场新阶段的全球竞争——消费者和企业都是他们所提供服务的受益者。
That, at least, is the view of Mary Meeker, the former US internet analyst who is still most closely associated with the dotcom boom of the 1990s. Since leaving Wall Street for Silicon Valley seven years ago to join venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, her annual analysis — in more than 200 slides — has become a widely used reference on the global state of the internet.
至少，这是玛丽·米克尔(Mary Meeker)的观点；她曾经是一名互联网分析师，仍被视为与上世纪90年代的网络股泡沫最为密切相关。自7年前离开华尔街转投硅谷风险投资公司凯鹏华盈(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)以来，她的年度分析（200多页幻灯片）已成为有关全球互联网状态的广泛使用的参考。
After what she calls “an epic half-decade” of expansion and stock market appreciation, Apple, Microsoft,Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook have emerged as the world’s five most valuable companies. Two Chinese internet companies —Alibaba and Tencent— have also broken into the top 10.
在经历了她所称的“史诗般的五年”扩张和股市增值之后，苹果(Apple)、微软(Microsoft)、Alphabet、亚马逊(Amazon)和Facebook已崛起为全球市值最高的五家公司。两家中国互联网公司——阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和腾讯(Tencent)——也闯入前10名。
The rise of this handful of internet giants has stirred worries among regulators and other industries that have not yet felt the touch of digital disruption. But, according to Ms Meeker, the concerns fail to take into account the rivalry that has engulfed the internet companies as they move out of their initial markets and on to each other’s turf.
这几家互联网巨头的崛起，已经引发了监管机构以及尚未感受到数字化颠覆影响的其他行业的担忧。但米克尔表示，这些担忧并未考虑到的一点是：随着这些互联网公司跨出自己最初的市场，挤入彼此的地盘，它们深陷相互间的竞争。
“People don’t spend enough time looking at how intense the competition is,” she says in an interview with the Financial Times. “The bet here is: we can’t stop progress. Are we better off or worse off? So far, the data implies we are better off.”
“人们没有花足够时间去关注这种竞争的激烈程度，”她在接受英国《金融时报》采访时表示，“我敢打赌：我们无法阻止进步。我们的境况更好了还是更遭了？到目前为止，数据显示我们的境况更好了。”
The picture of growing global dominance emerges from Ms Meeker’s latest slideshow, published yesterday. Referring to how online activity is reshaping markets spanning retail to transport, she says: “The pace and breadth of global change is happening at a pace that is faster than I would have anticipated.”
米克尔昨日发表的最新幻灯片显示了这些公司日益增强的全球主导地位。在谈到线上活动如何重塑从零售业到运输业的各类市场时，她表示：“全球变革的步伐和广度都超出我的预期。”
In the US, for instance, growth in online advertising and ecommerce has accelerated again since earlier this decade, with advertising revenues up 22 per cent last year and ecommerce up 15 per cent. Global online ad spending, at nearly $200bn, is forecast to exceed TV advertising for the first time this year.
例如，在美国，在线广告和电子商务的增长自本10年早些时候以来已再次加速，去年广告收入增长了22%，电子商务增长了15%。预计全球在线广告支出（近2000亿美元）今年将首次超过电视广告。
The disruption is deeper than the numbers suggest. In ecommerce, the adoption of technologies such as geolocation and machine learning are “changing retail at what is probably an accelerating rate”. And the collection of data on a mass scale is about to have a profound impact. Ms Meeker’s tip for a sector on the cusp of upheaval: healthcare, where regulations and barriers to sharing data have slowed innovation, but which she now says is ripe for change.
这种颠覆比这些数字所显示的要深刻得多。在电商领域，诸如地理定位、机器学习等技术的采用正在“加速改变零售业”。同时大规模数据收集即将产生深远影响。米克尔认为，站在剧变门槛上的一个行业是医疗保健——监管和共享数据面对的障碍减慢了创新的步伐，但她称，这一领域变革的时机现在已经成熟。
Despite Ms Meeker’s optimism about competition, however, the picture that emerges from her global snapshot also shows the effects of increasingly heavy concentrations in some digital markets.
虽然米克尔对竞争感到乐观，但从她的全球快照也可以看出某些数字市场越来越高度集中的后果。
Google and Facebook, for instance, accounted for 85 per cent of online advertising in the US last year, up from 76 per cent a year before. In the media world, Ms Meeker estimates that Spotify has already secured 20 per cent of global music revenues, and Netflix 30 per cent of home entertainment revenue in the US. These digital-first companies reflect a trend towards increasingly personalised services, she says: “It speaks to the power of the algorithms and the data. It improves pricing for users and consumer satisfaction.”
例如，谷歌和Facebook去年占了美国在线广告的85%，高于一年前的76%。在媒体界，米克尔估计Spotify已占到全球音乐收入的20%，Netflix占美国家庭娱乐收入的30%。这些数字服务提供商反映了越来越偏向个人化服务的趋势。她说：“这说明算法和数据的力量。它改善了用户面对的定价和消费者满意度。”
Future competition between the digital giants is likely to take place on the global stage. The internet markets in China and India have each reached a scale where they are poised to have a strong beneficial impact on their economies, Ms Meeker says. Their mobile payment infrastructures, for instance, put both countries “in an enviable position relative to the rest of the world”. And thanks to its national identity scheme, Aadhaar, and the spread of low-cost bandwidth, India is on the brink of an explosion of digital services.
数字巨头之间的未来竞争可能会发生在全球舞台上。米克尔说，中国和印度的互联网市场均已达到一个规模，将对它们的经济产生强大的有益影响。例如，中印的移动支付基础设施让两国“相较其他国家处于令人羡慕的地位”。而印度得益于其国民身份识别计划Aadhaar以及低成本带宽的普及，正处于数字服务爆炸的边缘。

With so much to play for, that has already made India “a global priority” between US and Chinese companies. American companies such as Amazon are approaching new markets such as this more aggressively, she says.
面对如此大的潜力，美国和中国企业都把印度视为“一个全球重点”。她说，亚马逊等美国企业正在更加积极地看待这类新市场。
But even if competition becomes increasingly fierce between the digital giants, will it create a new global oligopoly? After more than two decades watching the rise of internet leaders, Ms Meeker says she is “highly confident” new categories of activity will emerge, with new groups set to dominate them — much as Uber and Didi Chuxing have come to dominate ride hailing.
但是，即使这些数字巨头间的竞争变得越来越激烈，这种竞争会造就一个新的全球寡头垄断局面吗？经过20多年对互联网领军者崛起的观察，米克尔表示，她“非常有信心”新的业务类别将应运而生，同时新的集团将主导它们，就像优步(Uber)和滴滴出行(Didi Chuxing)将主导叫车市场一样。