Facishare published the business version of WeChat. Is this a sign that the ESN market will accelerate in China again?

As you know, WeChat is the one of most popular communication tools in China. And many companies already use it as a marketing tool to develop the Chinese market.

And this time, Facishare started to provide the business version of WeChat.

    




This word of "business version" means that it is used as a corporate internal system like the enterprise social networking(ESN) tool.


Well, why isn't it provided by Tencent, but is provided by Facishare?


Tencent has provided the business version of QQ "Biz QQ" for a long time, they were seeking the business partner of it to accelerate its business. And the end of March, they targeted some companies as an its business partner, but it seems that Facishare was the one of them.

And on the other hand, Facishare is a company of providing ESN system in China, and they were invested from IDG last year as the series A.

QQ has over 800 million active users per a month, and actually people in China use it as a business communication tool. But the business version of QQ is not so popular compared to the generic QQ.

So Tencent was (is) seeking the business partner to accelerate the BtoB market, and it seems that this business version of WeChat is the next step of the business collaboration.


As I explained before, the ESN market is becoming gradually hot in China. And according to the report by CCW Research, the market scale of ESN increased 246% compared to the last year in 2012. And some researcher said that 2013 will become the year that the ESN market is dramatically growing in China.

How will they progress from now on? Let's keep attention to them as ever.


Source => Sina Weibo, 21CN, 21cbh

[PR] Anhui OSS strengthen mobile solution of Weibo style enterprise social networking system “Crowdroid for Business” for making more smooth your enterprise mobile collaboration.

Today, our company published the new press release as follows, so please allow me to introduce it here.

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 Anhui Opensource Software inc. （Anhui OSS, President：Takamitsu Nakao） announced that published the lightweight WAP version and iPhone/iPad client to strengthen our mobile solution.

 Enterprise social networking system is increasingly needed in all over the world, but its mobile solution is also increasingly needed at the same time. We have provided its Android client for many years, but we start to provide its lightweight WAP version and iOS client to meet this expectation.

  According to the report by Forrester Research, the scale of enterprise socila networking market will be 6.4 billion USD in 2016. And its market is growing in China too, according to the report by CCW research, the scale of its market gained 246% growth in 2012.

 Because of this, its mobile solution is also increasingly needed at the same time. The number of mobile internet user is rapidly increasing. For example, its number in China was 420 million people in the end of 2012, and its increase number was larger than the whole internet users.

 We have provided its Android client for many years, but we start to provide its lightweight WAP version and iOS client to meet this expectation at this time.

 The detail of lightweight WAP version and iOS client is as follows:


1. Lightweight WAP Version
    According to the report by CNNIC, the mobile internet users in China were 420 million people in the end of 2012, and mobile device already became the top of all method connecting to the internet in China.

    But on the other hand, Baidu said that about 75% of mobile internet users in China were still using 2G connection in the last second quarter. So we start to provide the lightweight WAP version for these users. The UI of lightweight WAP version is very simple, so such users also can realize mobile collaboration very smoothly.
You can see the login page of lightweight WAP version here.
http://saaswap.crowdroid.com/

          




2. iPhone/iPad client “Crowdroid”
    iPhone have the second large market share in the smartphone market all over the world. And iPad also have the great popularity, and the user is increasing the day by day. According to the report by MIIT, the shipment number of smartphone in China was over 250 million units in 2012. We have provided its Android client for a long time, but we start to provide iOS Client at this time, so we can cover the most of smartphone users.

 


You can download its iOS client from here (free):
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crowdroid/id598535437

You can check the manual of Crowdroid here.
http://www.anhuioss.com/en/crowdroid/ios/manual1.html

We define these two products as prologue of enhancing our mobile solution, and we will add chat function to this in near future.



■About Crowdroid for Business(CFB)
CFB is a Weibo style enterprise social networking system that is suitable to mobile using too. CFB support three language(English, Japanese and Chines), and it have easy translation feature, so it is useful for using in the international companies/ communities. CFB also support the communication of n-to-n, so customers can understand the situation in their companies clearly, timely, easily.

Its detail and screen shot： http://www.anhuioss.com/en/crowdroidbiz/function.html

■About its price and license
Weibo style enterprise social networking system “Crowdroid for Business” have three types edition.
[Provide as License]
・Crowdroid for Business License Edition
[Provide as SaaS]
・Crowdroid for Business Professional Edition
・Crowdroid for Business Free Edition

※You can use "Crowdroid for Business Free Edition" freely within 30 users from here.
http://saas.crowdroid.com/
Lightweight WAP version： http://saaswap.crowdroid.com/

You can check the price list of each versions here:
http://www.anhuioss.com/en/crowdroidbiz/price.html

■About Anhui OSS
１）Company: Anhui Open Source Software Inc.
２）Legal Representative: Takamitsu Nakao
３）Address: Room402, Ma'anshan Software Park, No.798 Huolishan Road, Ma'anshan City, Anhui Province, China
４）Established Date: July 1, 2009
５）Main Service:
- Development of own products (Weibo style enterprise social networking system, Weibo and Twitter client for Android and so forth).
- Provide the outsourcing services related to social networking, Android apps, HTML5 apps and so forth.
- Provide the total consulting of related to open source software.
６）Registered Capital: 1,000,000 RMB
More：http://www.anhuioss.com/en/company.html

■Contact Us
Anhui Open Source Software Inc. Sales Team
http://www.anhuioss.com/en/ajaxmail/index.html
Twitter：@anhuioss_en(English)
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/weibo4biz


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Thanks!

The battle of Weibo and Weixin(WeChat) in 2012 and 2013. Each challenge and emerging.

2012 has already past, and 2013 already came. 

So today, I would like to think back on the trend of Chinese Social Media market that is focusing Weibo and Weixin(WeChat) last year, and survey the trend of them this year.

It can be said that 2012 was the year that the growth power of Weibo was decreasing, and the growth power of Weixin was dramatically increasing. About the fact that the growth power of Weibo was decreasing, we can make it clear from the history of reports from CNNIC.

Its indication was appeared from the second half of 2011, but its decrease was more remarkable in this year. The report of the second half of 2012 was not published yet, but I expect that the growth rate of this period will also remain at single digit figures.

Furthermore, I personally feel that the rate of active users is also gradually decreasing. There are two reasons for this.

1. The online user of friends was decreasing.

For example, we can find that how many users is now online on Sina Weibo as follows.

Today's number is only 27 people... Actually today is still holiday in China, but my friend on Sina Weibo exist about 600 people. The rate of online user is only 4.5%. 

It is a extreme example, but the daily average online user of last year was about 70 people, and the average of the year before last was about 130 people.

2. The traffic from Weibo was decreasing.

Our company was continuously posting the information on each social media of WW for marketing purpose. Weibo, especially Sina Weibo, brought the largest traffic to us, but this number was suddenly decreasing from the second half of 2012.

On the other hand, the growth power of Weixin is dramatically increasing as I explained before. And many companies already started the promotion activity on Weixin, and they started to post their QR code of Weixin on the other social media platform too.

For example, Starbucks also started their promotion activity on Weixin to Chinese people, but it's a one of representative example of O2O marketing.

Weixin will certainly accelerate their O2O marketing solutions this year, so more companies will start their marketing activity on Weixin this year.

I think that 2013 will become the challenge year for Weibo, and it will become emerging year for Weixin.

Weibo, for example Sina Weibo already started the monetization like "WeiboWallet", Ads on their platform, "Weibo Club" and so forth. But these can not get the success without increasing the number of user and online active user rate. This is also true for other Weibo provider, such as Tencent.

But on the other hand, Weixin also cannot relax their guard.

Because the similar service, such as LINE and Kakao Talk also watch vigilantly for a chance to enter Chinese Social Media market. And furthermore, there is a possibility that completely different social media platform may suddenly appear like a comet this year.

I would like to continue watching the trend of Social Media in China, mainly Weibo and Weixin(including other IM tools) this year too. But in the last, I would like to introduce the service that I personally expect in 2013.

1. LBS advertising

Actually, it is similar to O2O marketing by QR code. But I would like to define that O2O and LBS is separately. The market of LBS advertising in China was rapidly growing in the 2011 as I explained before. The report for 2012 is not published yet, but according to the report by CNNIC, mobile device became the top of all method connecting to the internet on 2012 Jun.

And the growth speed of mobile internet user in 2013 will be faster than last year. So mobile Ads, especially this LBS Ads will be more popular in China.

2. Enterprise Social Networking (Enterprise Collaboration tools)

As I explained before, the Enterprise Social Networking(ESN) market in China is rapidly growing, and it is estimated that this market growth rate will be 246% in 2012 by CCW Research. And ESN tool is suitable to the circumstance and culture for business in China.

More and more many company started to provide the ESN tools in China. And foreign company such as Salesforce, Yammer, IBM also may be watching vigilantly for a chance to enter this market in China.

So watching from the point of view by the user side and the provider side, it can be said that the popularity of ESN will be more and more rising this year.

IDC said that 27.2% of companies have already used the enterprise social networking system in Japan.

According to the recent report by IDC Japan, 48% of Japanese companies would like to use the enterprise social networking system in few years.

This report also said that 27.7% of Japanese company already use the enterprise social networking sytem.

In Japan, TOYOTA already use the enterprise social networking system. And 8,000 employee of this company already join this system, but they would like to increase to 30,000 users in few years.


This report said that the usage of email is almost 85% in Japan, but I think it may be increasing the user who use in different ways depending on several cases.



Source => IDC Japan, Asahi.com

Three reason that enterprise social networking will be welcomed in China.

I previously introduced that Chinese enterprise social networking(ESN) market is rapidly growing, and it is estimated that this market growth rate will be 246% in 2012 by CCW Research.

Well, why Chinese ESN market is rapidly growing? In other words, why is ESN welcomed in China?


Generally speaking, I guess that the merits of adopting ESN systems are mainly as follows:

- Everyone is on the same stage, so everyone can easily understand the current situation of company.
- It can provide an open environment for opinions and suggestions 
- Every one can collaborate more effectively and efficiently(Being able to simply ask and get a response) 
- It's easy to collect and accumulate the knowledge of enterprise. 
- It can connect with others even when your or other colleague is working remotely(Mobility). 
- Everyone can discover and recognize hidden talent in the company.
- Minimize email clutter
...

These are general reason, so it can be said that these are also fit for Chinese case. Then are there existing the other specific reason for Chinese company?

This answer is YES. I think there are specific 3 reason as follows:

1. Social media is already penetrated to consumer market in China.
Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo already each have more than 400 million users in China. And according to the recent report by CNNIC, 82.8% of Internet users in China use Instant Messanger(IM) tools, its total account already exist over 1.2 billion. Further more, SNS also have over 250 million users in the second quarter.

Tencent QQ(IM) is the biggest social media searcvice in China, and they already have 800 million accounts. On the other hand, QQ is much use in business seen in China. That proved many user would like to use the tool that is the experienced tools in business... But IM have a weak point in the communication of N-to-N, so Weibo or SNS will be more suitable in future.


2. In China, email usage is less than the average.
According to the recent report by CNNIC, the usage of Email is lower than 50%(the usage of mobile email is 25.9%).

And I have worked in China almost five years, I also feel the usage of email in China is lower than in Japan. The conceivable things is that social media tools, such as IM, SNS and Weibo, was alreadey penetrated, futhermore email is not suitable to Chinese disposition and tastes.


3. Mobile device already became the top of all method connecting to the internet in China.
According to the recent report by CNNIC, mobile internet user in China was 388,250,000 people in the second quarter, and its growth rate is also the biggest.

Colored Red Line = Mobile

Colored Blue Line = Desktop PC

Colored Green Line = Laptop PC





One of this reason is that internet environment of PC is not so good, especially inland area of China. In the most of inland in China, mobile 3G network is faster than the internet environment of PC. And China big 3 career will start to provide LTE network in few years. So these difference of the speed may continue to widen more than now.

As I said above, ESN is good compatible with mobile devices, so it can be the one of reason that ESN tool is suitable in China.


I explained before that many companies started to provide enterprise social networking tool in China, but the growth of its market will be accelerating more than now.