Market value of ink weather

Yu Yongfu, Chairman and CEO of Entrepreneurship magazine UC Vision: How much is UC worth? Interview and Zhai, the earliest and most profitable mobile Internet company in China, has to face the reality of value revaluation under the new industrial transformation. Gossip? The heroine? In the office on the 6th floor of Weiya Building/KLOC-0 in Suzhou Street, Yu Yongfu, Chairman and CEO of UC Vision, once again made a statement to Entrepreneurship magazine. My attitude has been very clear for a year, UC is not for sale. ? This is the Beijing office of UC, with more than 100 employees. UC 1500 employees are mostly in Guangzhou, far away from Beijing. Just in time for the interview? Bitch? On Women's Day, UC found a photographer from outside to take artistic photos of female employees. Baidu has been rumored to acquire UC for a long time. The version widely circulated in the media is that Baidu and UC reached a holding agreement before the Spring Festival, with a valuation of about 654.38+02 billion US dollars, but this is only a rumor. The attitude of all parties is as always. Baidu, the acquirer, is silent, while UC, the acquirer, insists that there is no such thing. Analysts believe that Baidu's acquisition of UC is to seize the entrance position of the mobile Internet and make up for the lack of its own mobile Internet field layout. UC, as one of the earliest enterprises of mobile Internet, has a glorious past, and it is almost the only choice for mobile phone users to surf the Internet in Saipan era. However, in the era of a new generation of smart terminals, faced with the strong impact of local apps and the fierce competition for market share by other mobile browsers, its development prospects are not clear. Find a big tree to enjoy the cool? . Yu Yongfu, born in 1976, looks older than his actual age, with a round face and a little fat. At the end of 2006, it was invested by Lenovo and parachuted into UC. At that time, the UC team led by He was only twelve or three people, and the funds were extremely tight. The financing plan was informed by almost all VCS executives in China? No? . Yu Yongfu and Lei Jun have a good personal relationship. Lei Jun once said that he supports everything Yongfu does. So UC got the first angel investment, Lei Jun's RMB 2 million. According to Yu Yongfu's summary, don't sell? First, UC entrepreneurs are the major shareholders of this company, and this matter cannot be shaken. Yu Yongfu said that he clearly realized that if a startup wants to develop, it must have a soul, that is, it must be clear about its owner; Many big companies like Nokia quickly closed down because they had no owners. Therefore, it is very important for UC team to realize the dream of UC and ensure its independence. Second, it is unshakable for enterprises to absorb valuable resources from the whole industry to upgrade their product technology during their growth. He said that there are many levels of cooperation, which can be equity investment or strategic cooperation between products and businesses. The key is to recognize the independence and dreams of the entire UC team and be willing to contribute. In addition to Lei Jun's angel investment at the end of 2006, in August 2007, UC received a total investment of $65.438+million from Morningstar Investment and Lianchuang Ceyuan, and later strategic investments from Alibaba Group and Nokia. Well, VC is quitting. ? We have no pressure to ask investors to withdraw their funds. ? Yu Yongfu said,? After the financing reached100000 USD in 2007, UC became the financing party. Early investors can quit at any time if they want, because someone will take over at any time. ? UC is not short of money. ? We may be one of the richest Internet companies among non-listed companies. ? Although Yu Yongfu has repeatedly claimed that UC is? Not for sale? However, the news that Entrepreneurship got from an investor who did not want to be named was that the transaction between Baidu and UC was in full swing, and Baidu was not the only one snapping up UC. ? The transaction is finally completed. It must be higher than10000000000 USD and should be between 12 and1500000000000 USD. ? The investor said. In fact, Tencent came into contact with UC a few years ago, when the price was similar, but one condition of Yu Yongfu completely blocked the possibility of cooperation: Tencent can invest, but it can no longer be a mobile browser. ? This is obviously unacceptable to penguins. ? An investor who asked not to be named told Entrepreneurship. He is very optimistic about UC's entrepreneurial team: everyone is strong. ? This team consists of four people, He is in charge of products and technology, Yu Yongfu is in charge of strategy, and Zhu, who joined later, is very tough in marketing. ? Their transition from Saipan era to Android era is very rapid, products keep up, and channels give full play to their original advantages. Although it is certainly not as powerful as the Nokia era, it is not bad overall. ? The investor said. Therefore, according to the analysis of investors, this transaction is a suitable transaction for Baidu. If UC continues to grow, it will be a very successful acquisition for Baidu. If UC does not grow, it is a defensive acquisition, and UC does not fall into the hands of competitors. UC is a company that can make money. Light games can earn 40 to 50 million yuan a month (before the share). The money acquired by Baidu can be earned back. ? If UC is still willing to sell for so much money, is this an opportunity worth cherishing for Baidu? According to the data of Zero2IPO Research Center, in 20 13 years, the number of mobile Internet users will surpass the Internet for the first time. It is foreseeable that in the next few years, the number of users of mobile Internet will increase substantially. Although the absolute usage of PC Internet will not decrease, compared with the mobile Internet, in many fields, the traffic proportion of PC fixed Internet will decrease. This means that a company with a market value of tens of billions, whether it is Ali, Baidu or Tencent, will be true if it does not get its due position on the mobile Internet after four or five years, or if it does not get the same position on the PC Internet as it is now. Out? Yes Spending hundreds of millions now is much more cost-effective than being marginalized one day in the future. An investor who focuses on the early mobile Internet told Entrepreneurship: Of course, it is wise for Baidu to invest or acquire mobile Internet companies. This is the best way for the older generation of internet companies to be replaced by a company that suddenly appears without taking a nap: to nip their rivals in the bud. ? No one can predict the future and no one can rewrite history. ? Google sold it for $2 billion, and Tencent sold tens of millions of RMB. If they didn't make it to the end, what would the internet world look like now? The investor lamented. Is the future of UC equal to the future of browsers? Is UC worth $65,438 +0.2 billion? People question the existence value of UC, in fact, they are more arguing about the position of mobile browser in the future mobile Internet. Is it an important entrance? Will it be more and more ignored because of the scenery of local apps? Hong Bo, a famous Internet person, is firm? Inverted browser pie? . He even believes that the mobile phone itself is an entrance; There is no other entrance above the phone. Moreover, with the maturity of the mobile Internet, users of mobile browsers will be heavily diverted by local apps, and browsers will be abandoned by most users. UC was developed from the 2G era. At that time, the processing power of mobile phone CPU was extremely low, and the internet speed was only a few kb. In order to solve the problem of slow network speed, UC adopts the cloud architecture of mixed computing of server and client: firstly, the web pages that users want to visit are crawled to their own servers, and then the pages are compressed by the servers and transmitted to mobile phones. Because Saipan's own browser was not powerful, UC almost became the only choice for users at that time. There were no applications in the Nokia era, and users could only surf the Internet through browsers. Today, users have a large number of applications to meet their different needs. Hongbo said:? UC browser used to be very important, but today its importance has been replaced. ? His conclusion is that Baidu's legendary acquisition of UC is not too high, but too high. There are not a few people who hold the same view, which is also the most questioned place of UC: the competitive environment of UC browser is not the same as that of Saipan era. The impact of local app, QQ browser and Baidu browser. Count a dozen competitors, big and small, and native browsers such as Android and Apple are getting better and better, which also reduces the opportunities for many people to use third-party browsers. However, when the market is small, it is useless to have a monopoly; When the market is big, the market share of a few percentage points is considerable. The total number of mobile Internet users is increasing, and the cake in the whole market is getting bigger and bigger, which is good news for every mobile browser manufacturer. The number of UC is that the number of monthly active users on Android has reached 65.438+0 billion. This number is several times larger than Saipan. What is the president of UC products? Our growth is faster than that of many peers, and our user activity is still improving. Now we find that the bigger the screen, the better the network and the more active we are. ? His reason for Xiao Peng is simple:? The hardware is being enhanced. After June this year, the worst mobile phones in the basic market are dual-core and 500 megabytes of memory, and the worst next year may be quad-core. The network is also getting faster and faster, and the changes from 3G to 4G and 4G to Wifi can definitely be expected. ? In the PC era, this kind of thing happens from time to time. Before 2007, everyone had to install a client to watch videos. Because the browser is very slow, the advantage of the client is that it can be cached and the video is smooth. However, after 2008, with the improvement of bandwidth transmission efficiency, watching videos in the browser is not stuck or slow. Today, most people watch video pages and watch Youku and Tudou. Users are not technical experts. What users need is not an App or a browser, but a simpler and faster service. Bo Huang, CEO of Wanpu Century Technology Co., Ltd., is a long-term observer of UC. He listed the browser and app store as two parallel entrances to the mobile Internet. He said that in the long run, you will definitely spend more time using the browser. Because the app store only allows users to stay for a short time, they leave after downloading the app, and the user's stickiness is low. The business model of the browser is broader than the app store, and it is easier to bundle some high-value and highly commercialized services in the browser. According to Bo Huang's estimation, in 20 12 years, the number of application stores will definitely exceed that of browsers, with a ratio of about two to one; Browsers will account for half this year; The browser may surpass the app store next year. Bo Huang divided the participants in the cmnet industrial chain into four echelons. The first echelon now has three and a half companies, Baidu, Tencent, 360, and half of them are 9 1. The concept of the first echelon is that each company not only does its own business, but also tries to dominate the whole industrial chain. These companies have a large layout, and both upstream and downstream are taken care of. But big companies didn't do much real functional things because they grabbed the entrance. The second echelon is Sina, Sohu, Netease, Century Home, and Public Comment. These companies try to occupy a good position in a vertical field with a big model. The big guys in the first echelon can't do it carefully or take care of it, so the people in the second echelon work hard. The third echelon is a company like Ink Weather, which has a small field and a unclear business model. The fourth echelon is some small and medium-sized developers. UC is regarded by Bo Huang as between the second echelon and the first echelon. Although it has not gained a firm foothold, it has occupied a good position in the vertical field of browsers. ? Although UC does not have the ability to lead the industrial chain, it already has the strength to compete with companies like Sina and Sohu on the mobile Internet. ? He said. What is UC? In Bo Huang's eyes, the difference between UC and other browser companies now lies not in its browser product itself, but in the layout of UC. ? It takes the browser as the entrance and has been platformized, but other browser manufacturers are still putting their lives into this small place, or it is still in the primitive accumulation stage. ? For the PC Internet that has been developed for 10 years, Yu Yongfu summed up a rule: users' needs are divided into three types: information needs, entertainment needs and life service needs. Accordingly, there are three commercial ways to realize cash: advertising paid by enterprises, value-added services paid by users and e-commerce with low purchase and high sale. ? Since 2008, we have built our own commercial service platform based on the portal service platform of mobile browser: navigation platform to meet people's demand for information; Game platform to meet the entertainment needs of mobile users; There is also a life service platform for e-commerce. ? Yu Yongfu said. On the PC Internet, advertising, value-added services and e-commerce have matured in stages, and the mobile Internet is no exception. UC began to make profits in 2009, and the maturity of commercialization began with advertising. At present, advertising is still the bulk of UC revenue, game revenue is growing rapidly, and e-commerce is still in the trial stage. Bo Huang said? Every browser has a navigation station, and the navigation positions of other browsers have not been explored commercially, so we should set one in a suitable place. But almost every position on UC has been sold, and it is sold through a very mature market pricing system. ? The benefits from this must be very different. ? Similarly, if there are 6.5438+million users a day, UC may generate 2 million revenue, but other browsers may generate 6.5438+million revenue. ? In 20 12 years, the share of UC Jiuyou and its partners reached 1 100 million yuan, and Jiuyou platform earned more than 20 games with a million yuan last month. And this is just the beginning. Zhu, chief operating officer of UC, introduced that in 2008, UC had two main lines, one was to promote UC browser, and the other was to figure out how to make money in the future. Games are definitely a relatively large field. At that time, the mobile game market was small and PC games were in full swing. The mobile phone screen is small, the game experience is poor, and the game life cycle is short, so users will only play in a very fragmented time. Covered people include many diaosi users who have no PC, such as workers and students, who usually play more and play less on weekends. At that time, those PC game developers didn't care about this on their mobile phones? Gadgets? , disdain. Moreover, the days of those game bosses are also difficult, and they are all fighting hard. The best talents and resources are invested in PC games. Even if some developers have a little investment in mobile phones, it is relatively insufficient. ? This is just an opportunity. It has left enough market space for professional mobile game manufacturers like us. ? Zhu Dui said: UC adopts a step-by-step approach. Download the game first, and see the user's preference for the game and the market development through the user's downloading behavior. At that time, UC basically decided to take the platform route, do channels, and not do content. Then establish a nine-tour platform to find game operators. By the time the platform was released in 20 12, it had accumulated for five years. ? Now should be the third stage of our development. Zhu said that the goal of Jiuyou 20 13 is to give developers 300 million yuan. UC's attempt in the field of e-commerce is similar to that of games. As a platform, the content is provided by professional e-commerce websites such as Taobao. Yu Yongfu said that UC hopes to be a shopping mall, providing coal, water and electricity and venues, and partners to open stores to do business. Shopping on the PC Internet is very convenient, because it has a convenient payment experience, and you can directly transfer money and pay merchants through the browser, which was not possible on the mobile phone before, and users can only use various clients. Through the cooperation with Alipay and UnionPay, UC realized that the mobile browser can support Alipay and UnionPay direct payment. The data of Taobao Wireless shows that UC browser has always been the most important channel for users to access Taobao with their mobile phones. Xiaomi used to sell mobile phones on UC, and as a result, he sold more than 20 thousand units a week. Bo Huang often ranks the number of users of each app in the app store and finds that UC currently has the most active downloads among all mobile browsers. ? User activity of UC is also relatively high. All domestic browsers have put advertisements on us and invested a lot of money, that is, the retention rate of UC is relatively high, which shows that UC people are either used in Saipan era and have some brand stickiness, or they may just think that the product functions are really good. ? He said. However, Hongbo does not agree with UC's commercialization attempt. ? I don't think this is innovation, but these places can make money. Browsers are used to browse the web. Being a game center actually reduces the use value of the browser. ? Hongbo said. What is UC's nuclear weapon? Many people think that UC's success stems from its early start. Kong Yi, vice president of Shunwei Investment, said that when Lei Jun invested in UC, people didn't feel much about the mobile Internet, so UC accumulated a large number of users. A software user who uses a lot and uses it for a long time will have feelings and brand dependence. In Bo Huang's view? Good morning. It is a reason, and more importantly, UC's marketing ability. ? The most successful place of UC is not technology and products, but communication with others. Every location on the UC navigation page, such as Sina and Sohu, is either selling money or changing quantity. ? UC swap has been going on for many years. ? This is how the Saipan era developed rapidly. Bo Huang said,? Now UC can get 654.38 million new users every day. ? It is said that UC has spent a year or two studying this system, and Chief Operating Officer Zhu is behind this system? Trader? . After many small websites have established this relationship with UC, they can no longer live without it. Because after leaving, there will be no traffic immediately. They were kidnapped voluntarily. For example, a website wants to hang somewhere on the UC navigation page and let UC pour traffic for itself. The way for the website to repay UC is to give money or help UC push users, or hang UC browser on its own website and recommend users to download it. Many large WAP websites in China have download links of UC browser because of this exchange relationship. If it is leveled once and for all, everyone is suitable. But in fact, it is uneven, and UC brings more users to the website. At this time, the webmaster of this website will pay for it himself and ask others to help him promote UC on the advertising platform. UC promotes itself on the advertising platform, and the possible download unit price is 1.5 yuan, that is, UC pays one and a half yuan to the advertising platform every time the user downloads. These webmasters push and download the unit price of 3 yuan on the advertising platform. Because too many webmasters can't afford so much traffic from UC, they have to pay for advertising platforms to promote UC. Everyone raises the price, and the price goes up. There is a tacit cooperation between the webmaster and the advertising platform. The main source of income of the website is advertising. There are many advertisements on the website. For example, if the webmaster earns 5 yuan, he will take out 3 yuan to help UC promote the browser, and these 3 yuan will return to the advertising platform. For this webmaster, he earned 5 yuan from the advertising platform and gave 3 yuan to the advertising platform. In the end, he only earned 2 yuan. A stationmaster said:? More than half of the money earned by webmasters must be used to promote UC. UC gives others a user, and others return UC as a user. UC has been given to other people's users or UC users, and others have become UC users. UC traffic 1 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 8, and it is getting bigger and bigger. ? The webmaster analyzed. Although UC didn't get the money directly, it got the user. In this process, UC did not spend money to promote itself, which is equivalent to saving most of the advertising expenses. ? UC's online promotion in recent years, 80% of the promotion fees are not paid by itself. ? A bunch of people help UC pay users, and the number of UC users is rising rapidly. The more users, the more effective the advertising space, and UC can sell its own advertisements at a good price. ? UC's game channel and music channel are sold by itself, and all searches are sold to Baidu. ? The stationmaster said,? Who made the most money in the end? UC is the most profitable. ? According to the webmaster's observation, QQ browser has been trying to establish UC, but it has not been successful. An entrepreneur who has a long-term cooperative relationship with UC said that the most important thing in UC system is the cooperative atmosphere. UC is more reliable in doing things, and it will bring you as much traffic as it says. I will give you as much money as you say, and I will never default. Therefore, the cooperation atmosphere between UC and the channel is very good. ? In contrast, when Tencent is too bureaucratic and the traffic is not as big as UC, it puts forward various requirements for channel partners. Originally, the exchange of traffic was that everyone cooperated on an equal footing, which was too strong and unpleasant. Tencent's volume exchange system has been limited to a small range, and its hematopoietic function is not as strong as UC. ? Dialogue Yu Yongfu's Entrepreneurship: Is the search on the mobile phone still valuable? Yu Yongfu: 10 A summary of the Internet is that there are third-rate people, information and cash flow running on the Internet. Only two locations are the most critical, one is the entrance and the other is the destination. Like a browser, like a search, it is the entrance; Like communities, music, videos and information are all destinations. On mobile phones, the demand for search will only be stronger. The whole Internet or IT industry is actually to help improve user efficiency and shorten the time for you to complete a requirement. As your time gets shorter, the demand will increase, because it's 24 hours anyway. Therefore, on the mobile Internet, there is a strong demand for users to find and reach their destinations. We can't look at search too narrowly. The first is the search form on the PC, and the demand on the mobile terminal will be very strong, but the mobile terminal itself is different from the PC, and it will have a series of enlarged search demands. What is the biggest difference? The input method is different. Traditional search focuses on entering a keyword, which gives you feedback results, which is the most important input and output of search. The biggest change in the mobile Internet is that the input method has changed. Initially, you must enter text. Now the mobile phone has more eyes, mouth and ears. It can use a microphone and a camera, and its input methods are various. There is also a lot of background input, that is, your mobile phone model, who you are, where you are and a series of information. These are all information that can be provided for background input by using the characteristics of mobile phones. Therefore, this broad search demand of the whole user will be greatly enlarged in the future. Entrepreneurship: What do you think of going public? Yu Yongfu: This depends on the big cycle. Last year, if you were a PC business company and could go public, you'd better go public. If you only have PC business this year, basically no one is interested in you. I think mobile internet companies will have the opportunity to go public in the next five years, and everyone will be interested. Entrepreneurship: What is a cool company in your eyes? Yu Yongfu: I think there are several meanings. The first layer means to lead the trend, everyone is using it, and a large number of users can call it a cool company. The second is that technology is leading, and everyone can't reach it. For example, Google Glass has no users yet, but everyone thinks it's cool. The third design, which is becoming more and more obvious in America, is the competitiveness of a product. Of course, it depends on the form of your product. For example, it is difficult to be cool in the design of browsers. But it's cool with a large number of users and advanced technology. Entrepreneurship: As an airborne CEO, how do you think the entrepreneurial team can be more cohesive? Yu Yongfu: In recent years, I feel that the cohesion between brothers is strengthening day by day. The three elements of Lenovo management, team building, strategy formulation and team leadership, are still critical. Members of different teams are one of the boards, and his strengths make the whole team a barrel. The team must have a good decision-making mechanism, and the topics should be fully discussed, but it must not pretend to be democratic. We must be the number one in business decisions. For example, all of us can give Tucki product suggestions, but Tucki must make the final decision. See if a team is called a team. In this case, let's see if everyone can trust and respect. Number one always makes the wrong decision, which is definitely not good. But if you make a mistake once, others will turn against you, even if the tolerance is too small. Another point is that everyone must complement each other. One advantage of complementary abilities is that I can't do what you can, and you can't do what I can, so you look at me and I look at you, and we appreciate each other from the heart.