Mobile Internet entrepreneurship: the United States does not represent the world

The differentiated development of China-US mobile Internet will directly affect the internationalization of Chinese companies.

Not long ago, Baidu Li Yanhong's internal emails and new Yahoo CEO both sent a clear signal that they would focus their future business on mobile terminals. It can be said that a common trend for future development is mobile first. Almost all Internet companies around the world first consider how the mobile device strategy develops at the strategic level, and then discuss PC-end businesses. Many companies have clearly defined their PC products and mobile products. Now, they have begun to integrate the two Departments of PC and wireless in the company's organizational structure, or simply put them together. Considering that mobile phones are the first Internet access method for more and more young users, the so-called PC Internet may be smaller than the mobile Internet, and may even become a supplement for the latter.

Who is more advantageous in this change? I heard a voice saying that the pressure on new mobile Internet entrants will be even greater. Since PC-end Internet companies have already accumulated a lot in terms of users and operations, once they turn over to the mobile Internet, these startups will almost survive.

In my opinion, this requires reverse thinking. In fact, the advantages of PC-end Internet companies may become a burden for them, because their accumulation is very deep and their performance is fast, and there may not be any real innovation for the implementation of mobile. For example, one of the most common problems that many PC-end development teams can easily ignore when moving to the Mobile End is power consumption. On the contrary, mobile internet companies are more pure because they have no burdens. All problems are based on mobile terminals.

However, comparing the development of mobile Internet in the United States and Asia, we will find that the difference between the two will become more and more obvious in the future, rather than gradually narrowing down. This is the result of different lifestyles. The United States is a typical country where people are driving cars. This has a huge impact on the mobile Internet user experience and infrastructure.

First, the infrastructure.

In the past six months, I have conducted network tests in many parts of the United States and found that 3G is actually inferior to that in China. Later, I consulted some local friends who engaged in communication network infrastructure in the United States, and learned that the reason is that the investment in 3G in the United States is far inferior to that in China, and it is impossible to achieve global coverage. This is also related to the fact that American cities are not concentrated in China and the population density is not high. However, from another perspective, the conversion speed from 3G to 4G networks in the United States will be very fast. As for WiFi, there is a big difference between the East and the West. For example, in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Wi-Fi coverage is good, but Silicon Valley does not represent the United States.

The second difference lies in the industrial chain.

90% of users in the United States purchase packages and mobile phones through the operator, which is very different from the situation where 80% of users in Asian countries purchase mobile phones and then go to the operator to buy packages, which will directly affect the development of the industry chain.

Third, the difference in user habits is gradually widening.

In recent years, mobile internet in the United States has developed rapidly, but in fact it is faster than pad. The proportion of WiFi in the United States is quite high. In contrast, Asian users mostly use public transport and prefer to keep moving with their mobile phones.

The constant expansion of these differences poses a challenge for Chinese companies such as UC to become internationalized. Before entering the United States, UC has made a lot of evaluations, which is different from that of Southeast Asia, South America and Africa. In the past, almost no foreign Internet companies have succeeded in the U.S. market. If UC can be made, it would be the first.

If you want to succeed in the United States, you must turn yourself into a truly localized company. From product development to management teams, you must have a lot of local authorization. Do not wait for the Headquarters to review the instructions for local products and services. In the past, multinational companies in the Internet sector had been broken down in China. Aside from some firewall factors, they failed in China for their own reasons, this may also become a key for UC to enter the U.S. market.

For example, a multinational company only opens a branch in China and only performs localized product translation instead of customized according to local requirements. The Chinese Team of MSN told the Headquarters how many times that they applied for two accounts to log on at the same time. The headquarters did not understand the request and asked them: Why? This case reflects the problem of internationalization. Microsoft has recently made a decision to stop using MSN in China in first quarter of 2013.