Tencent Department of this two big action, perhaps means that Chinese input method will usher in a big change.
Input method C terminal demand is increasingly saturated, the former king ushered in a new mission
According to iMedia Research, the third-party input method market of mobile phones continues to show a stable "double giants" situation in 2021, with Baidu input method and Sogou input method together accounting for nearly 86% of the market share, while iFlytek, the third ranked company, just over 10%. In recent years, Baidu input method with its technical input, further seize the market.
But while the industry landscape is still evolving, the market as a whole is moving into an era of inventory. According to iMedia Research, in 2019, the number of mobile phone input method users in China reached 729 million, with an annual growth rate of 3.9%. Thereafter, the growth rate will be 3.6% in 2020 and 3.4% in 2021. Although the market is still growing, it is no longer limited to the "only growth theory of scale". At present, it has become a new development trend of the input method industry to shift from the C end to the B end, and the B end is becoming a new growth point. For input method enterprises, the core technology accumulated in the C end will also be the core advantage of their expansion in the B end market.
picture
With the advent of the Internet of Everything era, the input method also ushered in a new incremental market. After 40 years of development from scratch, Chinese input method is facing a big change. All along, as the key to the Chinese Internet, the Chinese input method, whether it is handwritten, Wubi or pinyin, mainly exists to connect people with the Internet. Now, as the wave of mobile Internet comes to an end and the era of the meta-universe and the Internet of everything begins, Chinese input method will also usher in a further transition, extending from the Internet scene to a more diversified scene, and the input method industry will usher in the second growth curve.
picture
Therefore, the former king of input method Sogou input method launched an open platform for B end, is a landmark event of great reading value, not only means that the input method lake officially entered a new era, but also means that Sogou input method as Tencent test water input method B end market leader, ushered in its new mission.
Sogou drive, Tencent opened the input method of dual combat
Sogou input method used to be the king of the C end market.
Sogou company once relied on this king fried products, successfully created a once highly respected three-stage rocket type classic business model - "input method + browser + search", to input method as the entrance layer upon layer pull, finally through search cash. Sogou was once China's fourth-largest Internet company in terms of user base, after TiangangBAT. With a huge user base and a clear business model, Sogou has been shuffled among domestic Internet giants such as 360, Ali, Tencent and Baidu for many years. Wang Xiaochuan, the former CEO of Sogou, in order to maintain the independent operation of Sogou, played a role among the giants, successively attracting Alibaba and Tencent to buy shares, while rejecting the merger intention of 360 twice, which is quite an alliance.
Wang Xiaochuan has publicly evaluated the three-stage rocket model, respectively to Sogou's input method, browser, search engine scored 99 points, 90 points and 60 points, visible Sogou input method for Sogou pillar significance. And over the years, Tencent from the investment, to constantly additional investment resources tilt, and finally to spend a large amount of money to completely acquire Sogou, to a large extent is also focused on the Sogou input method of this core competitiveness.
Tencent has always had an obsession with input methods. Because input methods are essentially portals that connect users to the Internet, as they were in the PC era, as they are in the mobile Internet era. Input method users' frequent and continuous input demand has brought great stickiness to it. Besides, as the source of information input, input method has undoubted strategic importance, which is related to information security and can precipitate all kinds of information.
It is both the entrance of traffic and the position of big data. As we all know, in the era of mobile Internet, who has mastered more traffic and data, who will have a greater say. The market "traffic is king" argument is needless to say, data is the food of artificial intelligence, all technological progress, user experience optimization, precision marketing, etc., need to be based on a large number of data analysis, with the acceleration of large-scale information construction process, the input method born with traffic and data genes will build a strong endogenous cycle for an enterprise.
That's why a year ago, when Sogou's three-stage rocket business model was under attack in the mobile Internet era, Tencent was still willing to pay a lot of money to take Sogou under its wing and break it up and integrate it into its own system.
With the continuation and upgrading of such strategic considerations, Tencent's intention is no longer limited to the input method in the Internet scene, but to continue to develop the input method for multiple scenarios in the future.
This from Tencent system of two major actions can be seen. Almost at the same time, on the one hand, Sogou input method officially launched an open platform for B-terminal multi-scene, on the other hand, the role of hundreds of millions of users of wechat, quietly launched its own C-terminal wechat input method, which indicates that Tencent in the field of input method has a clear dual-front battle pattern.
As the former C end market king, Sogou input method in Tencent input game can play a driving role, is obvious.
conclusion
It is worth mentioning that during the integration of Sogou input method, the biggest rival Baidu input method obviously did not waste time, and the B-end market also moved frequently. Before the end of 2021, it has cooperated with China Citic Bank, Minsheng Bank and other financial institutions, which is similar to the B-end industry for which Sogou launched its open platform. Baidu has also entered many industries such as retail, energy, education, vehicle-mounted, medical, and localized systems, and has certain first-mover advantages in some industries.
But after integration, Baidu input method will be from Tencent department of dual combat. At the C end, wechat, which has hundreds of millions of users, is expected to rise quickly and seize the market in a big way by relying on the technology and experience transfusion of its brother Sogou input method. In the new scene of the B end, Sogou with years of accumulated experience, coupled with Tencent's resource tilt, is also expected to quickly complement some of the technical shortcomings, quickly seize the B end market.
Overall, the current Tencent system in the input method field of the two major actions, marking the Chinese input method will usher in a big change in the input method C end market gradually into the stock era, at the same time has a large number of user scenes of wechat to disrupt the background, it can be predicted that as the current C end market double giants Baidu, Sogou, In the future, it will be further extended out of the C terminal market, and if there is no accident, the input method of wechat will soon be bigger. And Sogou input method into Tencent after 1 year of integration, under the tide of the Internet of everything, re-start a large scale into the B market, is also expected to usher in the second growth curve of life.
