Variable UC Browser: Boil out the commercial key

Yu for a long time did not appear in public, most occasions, instead of his appearance is UC President He Xiaopeng and COO Zhushunti.

This is no longer 2011, and it doesn't take a yu of UC chairman and CEO to answer questions like "browsers and apps who are the future", which once bothered him. UC already has 400 million users, a number that Yu two years ago. He can focus more on the international market, and in fact, it is difficult for UC in the Chinese market that a set of mature rules of survival change. "Entrepreneurship has become a physical activity. Yu laughs. In his plan, UC will be a company of 1 billion users, and the United States, India, Russia and other overseas markets will share half of them, which makes him to travel to several important markets.

Yu began to dream more, and at a private party, he even made a rare discovery that he wanted to compete for bat (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) after the "fourth place". Clearly, in his understanding, UC has the opportunity to become the same scale as the bat platform-type company. As a result, all the rumors of being acquired are naturally nonsense, "I do not think that UC has the possibility of being sold, you can only see UC to acquire other companies." ”

UC became a typical and atypical sample of the mobile internet age. The typical point is that it is almost the only reasonable path to an ecosystem platform in this era, this is even truer than a micro-letter that has not yet been commercially available, and its atypical is that the business model of mobile browsers has never been considered a "backward capacity", Apple's app The store is considered a business model for mobile internet.

But in any case, whether it's an independent development or a takeover (it's still on the list of those giants), UC is certainly the "variable" that is likely to change China's internet business landscape.

A year of "boil"

It seems like 2012 years have changed all this. Because in this year UC users rose from 300 million to 400 million, a more critical indicator is that the monthly active user on the Android platform has broken through 100 million, meaning that UC is no longer the helm that is tied to the impending sinking of the Symbian.

And the real turning point is in 2011, this is UC considered to be "third pioneering" the beginning of the year, the previous two times, the company solved the problem of survival and development. "The most dangerous moment," Yu once said at an internal meeting, is the betting on the Android platform, "We have a very clear judgment that Android will beat iOS, but that was very challenging at the time." ”

Although platform-shifted nodes are obvious, it is not easy for Yu to make this decision. You know, there were only 100,000 UC users on Android, and the near-monopoly on the Symbian platform was enough to make it profitable in 2009. The temptation of iOS is always there, "if it was 2 years ago, I'd think I'd start with iOS." "This is He Xiaopeng's advice to internet entrepreneurs, although that doesn't mean he was judging UC, but the iOS platform is more capable of making Android's so-called market size a device."

The 2011 Yu still wants to do well, first the steep upward curve of the Android platform to see the possibility of a company transition, and the U3 kernel he hopes to release in the middle of the year, which is considered an important element in changing the tide of the war.

In the previous few years, Yu has long wanted to understand the mobile phone browser commercialization of the way, has also laid a clear thread. The acquisition of Skynet in 2007 is already one of the leading users of mobile software downloads, which became the main body of the application distribution channel that UC later built. And nine of the same year's investment began to transform into a game platform in 2009, "their ability to transition is very strong, in 2010, I told them ' to open a big boat," the business will have more explosive power, they did not hesitate to agree to be integrated. "Yu said.

This is the three business model he often mentions: Information service platform, entertainment service platform and Life service platform. From the start, he didn't think that browsers were just a tool. At the end of 2006, Yu's report on investing in UC, a very important judgment, was the number of value-added services available, which represented future profitability.

Ideally, Yu would like to spend 2011 years and 2012 two years, "low-key" in the Chinese market to complete the accumulation of users, and product commercialization of the formation. After 2010 years of groping for a year, he also believes that internationalization will be an important opportunity for UC to break through.

The business logic of all this seemed unassailable, but something unexpected disrupted his pace. UC fell into a series of scold battle, first and Tencent's "UQ War", and the dolphin about the true and false core of the quarrel.

"I always thought I was ready. "From his determination to leave Lenovo investment, the moment to join UC, about operators, mobile phone manufacturers, Tencent and Baidu to enter the browser of various assumptions, he actually

I've thought about it countless times. "But the ' UQ war ' is the most important one in my seven years of entrepreneurial process. "This should be the hardest part of the Yu, not just the unprecedented competition," he said. The QQ browser and Dolphin Browser represent two dimensions of competition, the former is the giant's all-round pressure, while the latter seems to represent a more advanced business model.

Worse, public opinion is abandoning browsers. In August 2010, Wired published The famous "Web Dead Internet", and in the year that followed, there was little good news in the browser industry, and they watched HTML 5 (a standard in web format) become a laughingstock. "Until the end of 2011, everyone's voice began to clear, and I distinctly felt a few big changes." The first is the improvement of the user experience that HTML5 show, let a lot of people begin to be optimistic. The second is the promotion of the industry chain, especially to Google, Facebook, Microsoft, such as the Giants, to give us a direction. "In Silicon Valley, Yu was moved to various bureaus, and that was the most densely-populated part of the media he saw at home," he said.

For a moment, the mobile browser has become a sweet pastry, UC and Baidu rumors began to be rampant, and the past year, the Nordic browser maker Opera has become the goal of Facebook.

But obviously, 2011, Yu "Endure" a year, fortunately, some sudden changes in fact did not let him to adjust the strategic direction of UC. But "third pioneering" in the beginning, gave him a horse, or unavoidably let him a little uneasy.

Commercial key

This is also the stage, so that the commercialization of UC has enough real and rigorous environment, which is why Yu later have enough to insist on not being acquired one of the important reasons.

The starting point of the whole thing is Zhushunti's affiliation. "October 5, 2007", Yu clearly remember this day, this is Zhushunti led by Skynet in UC's first working day. In the beginning, he was entrusted with the task, "after he came, we began to have a market system, followed by the business system." ”

Today, in 2007, the industry is known to be a major "rectification movement" of UC-the adolescent conference, in Lenovo formed a good summary of the methodology of the Yu, after this conference, clear the UC "do subtraction" strategy, meaning to throw away those who do not help the browser, focus on doing something.

And in the same year, something as important as this is happening, and that is the takeover of Skynet. "One thing we want to know is that the head and feet need to grow in harmony." Yu said, "UC before strong is the product, but in the business promotion almost did not accumulate, to tell the truth, very laborious." ”

But investors are explicitly opposed to the deal, even though Yu has stated that the core of the deal is Zhushunti. He has studied Zhu's project in Lenovo Investment, although at that time because not optimistic about the project itself and dour no, but Yu very optimistic about the team. "I put them under pressure, and for a while I was angry with the board, and it wasn't until more than a year later that the board saw the value of the deal." ”

QQ Browser insiders have privately this evaluation of Zhushunti to UC changes: Even the two products interchangeable, UC to promote the Qq browser, can also get the same performance. "This is the difference in operational capacity. ”

UC "Killer" is a very powerful network Alliance system, a very conventional phenomenon is, in a variety of mobile phone forums and WAP sites, everywhere can see the promotion of UC. However, this is not what UC did, but tens of thousands of grassroots sites do, UC very smart to the game of the promotion of the way to copy to the browser industry.

In the early days, UC aggregated a large number of WAP sites through two ways of distributing benefits: One is the cash transaction, that is, the WAP site as long as the UC to bring new users, UC will pay a certain fee; and another way is the common traffic interchange, that is, UC will some of the larger traffic of WAP Web site added to its own navigation page, WAP sites Help it develop users for free.

And it turns out that the second model can form a very powerful circulation--UC bring more traffic, WAP sites need to bring it more new users; the more new users, the more traffic the WAP website can get, the higher the advertising revenue may be. UC flow is so 1 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 8, the greater the change.

The industry has a saying is that UC years of online promotion, 80% of promotional fees are not their own, but in the user crazy growth at the same time, UC some popular locations and channels of advertising prices more and more expensive. In this way, almost every location on the UC navigation station is ultimately sold through a very sophisticated market pricing system. At this point, QQ browser has been learning, but can not achieve the level of UC.

Yu that the difference lies in the operation of the details of the grasp of "inconceivable." In order to improve the efficiency of promotion, UC is responsible for the Department of the network will first roughly determine the user's active area and often haunt the network platform, and then for these platforms for purposeful marketing. Even at weekends, there are special eyes to promote the data, and to adjust the strategy to ensure that the system to operate the most efficient.

For those small site webmaster speaking, UC more like a partner, and Tencent is always high. "Starting in 2012, I have a clear sense that we are getting closer to our partners and responding faster to our partners ' services," he said. "Yu said.

Within the UC, has formed a set of mechanisms, that is, the marketing department should always maintain the communication with CP (content provider), UC needs to meet the reasonable demands of partners. Of course, it is on this basis, it puts forward more accurate understanding of user habits after the recommendations.

This set of mechanisms maps well to nine trips, after the Skynet war, Yu several times said that the Zhushunti team "more and more feel."

For example, in the development of marketing plans, some CP will set the game's public test time in the month of mid-late, or even month end. At this time UC will advise them to revise the plan, because China Mobile internet has a "25th effect", that is often the end of the month is the monthly flow of the top of the time, users of mobile internet will be more cautious, not too often.

2012, the nine tour to the partner's division reached 100 million yuan, after the Tencent game, Yu set the new goal is 2013 of the split to reach 300 million yuan.

Variable

The commercialization of the expansion of the Yu ideal of the ecosystem of a board, in his view, the ecosystem must have two threads, one is traffic, and the other is cash flow, which is the vast majority of apps can only be the main reason for the app.

UC has been lying in the various giants of the acquisition list, they believe that the successful acquisition of UC means to get half a ticket, especially Baidu.

Yu does not deny any contact with these giants, "indeed, many companies are interested in us." "In fact, in 2010, UC already has the condition of listing," compared to 360 before the two key indicators, the first is browser users 172 million, the other one is the income of 370 million yuan, we have already reached the two indicators. ”

Some of the data from investors, auditors dispersed, which naturally caused a lot of companies concern. "But in fact, since the morning Hing investment and joint venture sources of 10 million of dollars in financing, we have been in the state of party A." Yu said, "I am not a rejection of investment, but we do not lack of money, all the financing of UC has to help." ”

In June 2009 and March 2010, UC received strategic investment from Alibaba and Nokia respectively, and after that, the financing door was closed.

Yu's heart longs for UC's control of the board, "to know how hard it is for Yahoo to add a board seat to Alibaba." "At just the end of the Global mobile Internet Conference, Yu repeatedly stressed that the so-called" independent development "is to have a majority in the board of directors. He is closing the door to selling UC a little bit, and he has not answered the economic observer's question about the possibility of a 2011 takeover. But at least for now, acquisitions are only theoretically present.

UC just announced the "3 3 3 Plan" in the next 3 years, UC will be in the talent, ecosystem and internationalization of three aspects, a total of 3 billion yuan. This is considered a positive signal that UC revealed has invested more than 20 entrepreneurial teams, including security Butler and ES file management.

Now, the word "variable" in UC, only left the "fourth place" possibility. The path to independent development may be more risky than being acquired. Because, this means that UC is going to build all the missing "infrastructure" from payment to sharing, which is a complex system engineering.

"A few years ago, QQ Browser is our biggest opponent, and now, Chrome is our goal." "About competition, Yu didn't say much. But it is clear that, if positioning is a niche ecosystem, the challenges he faces will be unprecedented, and he knows better than anyone else.