Internet companies foresee a future in mobiles
China’s Internet companies are excited at the prospect of increasing their presence on mobile platforms.
The sector is enjoying rapid development following the introduction of third generation (3G) networks. But before they can replicate their success or experiences with traditional Internet platforms, they are having to cope with new challenges.
Tencent Holdings, the owner of QQ, the most popular instant messaging (IM) service in China, said it had to make a painstaking turnaround to meet the needs of mobile Internet users.
“In the past, we always wanted our products to be fancy because we believed this would create the best user experience,” said a manager from Tencent who declined to be named. “But later we found that things worked completely differently in the mobile Internet world.”
Though users of the mobile Internet and PC-based Internet have an overlap of about 50 to 60 percent, according to research firm Analysys International, mobile Internet users tend to use quick and convenient services because they usually access the Internet for very short time periods.
“As a result we have to let our products ‘lose weight’ now, to make them as simple and easy to use as possible, which was a hard lesson to learn,” added the Tencent manager.
Tencent entered the mobile Internet five years ago and has by now put most of its PC-based Internet services on the mobile platform, including the IM service QQ, a mobile portal and mobile gaming. Its mobile QQ had about 81.2 million active users over the last quarter of 2009, ranking it top in the mobile IM market, according to Analysys International.
To gain an upper hand in the mobile market, Internet companies have to largely increase their research and development input though most of them are still looking for a way to make profits.
Alipay, the e-payment arm under the Alibaba Group, said the company spent three to five million yuan every year just in developing client software for different mobile phone operating systems.
“To come out with suitable solutions for each different operating system has become a big technological challenge for us,” said Chen Lei, director of the wireless department at Alipay.
The number of China’s mobile Internet users increased by 120 million to reach a total of 233 million in 2009, according to China Internet Network Information Center.
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