Gould's rage mobile navigation overnight change free mobile Internet No retreat

The chief executive of Nasdaq:amap is angry from his heart. He finally uttered the name of the competitor, Baidu (Nasdaq:bidu). "Baidu is an internet company that should not have charged," he added, "It's not a professional navigation, and we're officially free today." He said, "I'm sorry for the people who used to collect the fees." "A series of statements made the conference scene an uproar.

The press conference, which began two months ago, was "robbed" a day ago and was not a reason not to be angry. August 29 afternoon, the German "Navigation mobile phone application Free conference" scheduled to convene, the industry's concern has shifted to Baidu. The day before 3:14 P.M., Baidu suddenly announced on the official microblog: Baidu Navigation forever free. 7:09 that evening, originally prepared to release the news the next day, the gold can only be issued in advance statement: The German navigation mobile phone application immediately free.

Overnight, mobile phone navigation into the free era. Before this, mobile phone users if the installation of the German navigation needs 50 yuan, Baidu navigation will need 30 yuan. Baidu is further announced that previously paid users all refunds, which aroused the anger from the heart of Wu.

No wonder from Wusheng gas: Gould has been the leader in the field of navigation, with 70 million users, the past competitors are Kay, four-dimensional traditional software vendors, we are charging mode, Kay mobile phone navigation software prices even up to 108 yuan. This year only independent Baidu navigation user base is very small, but by free to seize market share. But for most users, free is everything. In the Baidu navigation announcement free 6 days time, the iOS user downloads the quantity to increase more than 1000%, the Android user download volume increases 880%.

In fact, the past navigation software is mainly to drive the "high handsome" used, this is a relatively closed market, divided into the front and back pack market. Pre-loading is the license of the car manufacturer to purchase navigation map software and data from the navigation software manufacturer. And then integrate with their own hardware, pre-installed in the factory car, they tend to be relatively high-end models, after the owner after buying a car, and then to 4S shop or electronic market to buy professional navigation equipment, And these devices have pre-installed the navigation software, these models relatively low-end some. Navigation software vendors, such as Gould, make a huge profit by selling licenses to carmakers.

However, with the popularity of big-screen smartphones and mobile internet, the so-called back-pack market has been in jeopardy: since the owner has been able to use the mobile phone, to a much lower price than the original experience is also a good navigation services, why pay to buy special equipment? Most of these devices do not have networking capabilities, and the software and data are upgraded over time. The front-loading market will also be hit in the next few years: the mobile phone's online function allows it not only to complete navigation, but also to integrate car rescue, location sharing and other functions, which is pre-installed equipment is difficult to do.

He saw this trend a few years ago, and began to vigorously develop mobile navigation business. In July 2009, Gould launched the iOS version of the high navigation, and then launched the Android version, on the one hand to the major application stores for the end user to download, on the other hand, and many handset manufacturers to carry out pre-installed cooperation. However, at this time the German navigation is still charged, according to the different channels, either to the end user fees, or to the mobile phone manufacturers charge.

In May 2011, the business of Gould made a more drastic change and began to launch a free gold map. In the beginning, compared to "Big Brother", the "little brother" map of the user experience is relatively poor: map data is not so detailed, no road conditions, only to provide location and route planning functions, the main users are actually no car of the cock silk.

But, as Harvard Business School Professor Christensen describes as "disruptive innovation" in "The Innovator's Dilemma", products that initially target the non-mainstream are inferior in quality and price to mainstream products, but through constant improvement, they eventually subvert mainstream products.

"Big Brother" was gradually overturned by "little brother". As of the second quarter of 2013, the gold map developed 137 million users, the monthly active users reached 62 million, the charge of the German navigation but only 70 million users, the monthly active users only 3 million. Today, the map not only integrates the unique navigation features of the past, but also uses a wider range of localized living services.

The more subversive power comes from the Internet. Since 2011, the PC Internet giants have suddenly awakened, have been on the mobile internet heavily, as a mobile internet important access to the mobile map is also highly valued. Among them, the performance of Baidu map is especially fierce. Since last year, the deep pockets of Baidu began to pay the money to mobile phone manufacturers, "help" they pre-installed in the mobile phone Baidu map. "It used to be that we paid for the map software and now we're being paid to get the map software." Yulong vice President Sozin said. Baidu also make full use of their own on the PC Internet traffic advantages, and constantly to the Baidu map to bring new users.

More than a year, Baidu Map has been able to keep pace with the gold map. Recently, an AI media advisory released a report showed that the first half of this year Baidu map market share has reached 35.5% and surpassed the Gold map (market share of 26.7%). The second quarterly study, published last year by the media consultant, showed that the market share of the gold map was 21.4%, ahead of 20.3% of the Baidu map. Obviously, both Gould and Baidu are expanding their lead, but Baidu maps have run faster.

He was caught in a classic prisoner's dilemma: in the second quarter of this year, Gould still had 61.5% of its revenue from traditional car navigation and business applications, and a large part of those operations would be replaced by mobile navigation in the years ahead. However, the company has done a good job of mobile phone services, but is also being free of gold map, Baidu Navigation and other mobile internet business impact.

As early as two years ago, Zhou, chairman of the independent director of the Gold (Qihoo 360), recommended that the guide be free, with an example of his own free unified security software market. At that time, although not the adoption of the Zhou of the opinion, but also began to vigorously develop free gold map, it is like the migration of elephants, although already on the road, but still on the grass lush home obsession, even know it is about to dry.

Now, the old home is really out of the question. In the second quarter of this year, the results showed that while mobile internet business grew by 33.6%, overall revenue fell by 5% in the quarter and net profit slipped 57%, thanks to a sharp decline in the car navigation business. September 3 after the quarterly release, Goldman Sachs released its research report, lowering the target price of the company.

At this time, the way of the gold can go is not much, with the words of Cheng Congwu, can only "the hero broken wrist, leather their own life", and "free" is a further "revolution" of the only road. Through free, he hopes to win the car after the market, broke the Kay and four-dimensional and other old opponents of the road, and after the gold navigation announced free, four-dimensional picture of the new share price plummeted.

As Zhou said, Gould will be free to complete the transition from software companies to internet companies. But this is still just the first step, and the next step is for Gould to build his own business closed loop. In the past, the core competitiveness of Gould is map data, half of the staff in Beijing Changping data production base to do map data collection, collation and processing work. However, these maps "big data" has not shown high commercial value, because as a traditional software company, the gold, not adapt to the rules of the Internet competition, it has a large number of users, but lack of the business model to cash them. If you look at the results of the second quarter of this year, 137 million of the gold map users have generated 14.7 million of dollars in revenue.

This May, Gould introduced Alibaba as the largest shareholder, trying to solve the problem of business model through external resources. Ali Wireless Vice President Chuhengchang said that the two sides already have staff to work in the other office, the next step will be more cooperation on the data, is expected in the fourth quarter of this year will be jointly developed products launched. For his part, the mobile internet is a one-way street, with no alternative but to move on.