Read THECAPITAL Will Yuan Yuan meet the curse of the top of the charts?
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Will Yuanbao meet the curse of the top of the charts?
This article 3784, about 5 4 minutes Author Wang Lu Editor Wei Jia Source Fixed Focus One dingjiaoone
This article is 3784, about 5 4 minutes
Author Wang Lu Editor Wei Jia
Source Fixed Focus One
dingjiaoone
The top player in the AI circle has changed again, from Kimi last year, to DeepSeek at the start of the year, and now it’s Tencent Yuanbao’s turn.
On the evening of March 3, Yuanbao surpassed DeepSeek and ranked first in the free App download list of Apple’s China app store.
A month ago, Yuanbao was also considered by the outside world as the most nonexistent AI general-purpose app.QuestMobile data shows that in last year’s AI native App list, Yuanbao’s monthly live user scale was only ranked eleventh, while similar beanbag Kimi Wenxin Yiyin, respectively, occupied the top three.
Yuanbao’s low profile has a certain relationship with its late launch, it is the last TO C application in the big manufacturers to enter the game, but the more important reason is that Tencent did not seem to invest enough resources in Yuanbao before.
The Yuanbao App went live in May 2024, and it wasn’t until March of this year that the web version was launched. Last year, Doubao Kimi competed fiercely in marketing, and Yuanbao was even more delayed in participating.
It wasn’t until this year, when Yuanbao accessed DeepSeek, that the situation was reversed.
Tencent’s major applications have appeared to download Yuanbao’s ads, and even WeChat, which has always been stingy, has given Yuanbao a place in its nine-cell grid. In addition to promoting on its own platform, Yuanbao has also invested a large number of advertisements on external platforms such as Weibo, B-station and Jitter.
In just over half a month, Yuanbao has been updated seven times, which includes major changes such as access to DeepSeek and the launch of its own in-depth thinking model, the hybrid T1, and the fast thinking model, the hybrid Turbo S, as well as the addition of a new one-click export of the conversation long map computer version on the line and other features.
Just like that, Yuanbao killed it.
In the long run, whether the current traffic can be converted into user retention will be the key to determining the future fate of Yuanbao, or else there is a risk of repeating Kimi’s mistake and only briefly occupying the top of the list.
Yuanbao topped the charts, where did it win?
At present, the outside world’s questions about Yuanbao are mainly focused on, from the small transparent leap to become the first, is it by strength, or by marketing? Is there any water in this first place?
First, let’s look at Yuanbao’s modeling ability.
More than one practitioner said, dual-model strategy Both access to external DeepSeek, but also self-research Hunyuan large model is the biggest advantage of Yuanbao, the two popular AI general-purpose application Kimi Doubao, are only built-in self-research large model.
Tencent’s self-developed Hunyuan model, the hybrid T1 Turbo S, is exclusive to Yuanbao, and these two models have been launched intensively in the recent past, with the hybrid T1 launched on February 17th of this year, and the Turbo S ten days later.
Since they are both closed-source models, there is no authoritative list ranking, we mainly evaluate them by combining the practitioners’ usage experience and public papers. Hybrid T1 focuses on deep thinking and is similar to DeepSeek R1, but Jiang Shu, a senior practitioner in the AI industry, believes that its reasoning ability is not too far from the rest of the country.
A well-known expert in the field of large models also believes that, from the perspective of the time of the model’s launch and the relevant paper reports, DeepSeek and Kimi are stronger among the domestic reasoning large models, compared with Mixed Element T1, which is slightly weaker.
Turbo S belongs to the fast thinking model, the main speed, can realize the second back first word delay reduced by 44 is the highlight.
However, practitioners believe that the current market focus on the depth of reasoning ability of the large model, fast thinking seems to have overstayed its welcome, after all, Ali Qwen series of models Wenxin Yiyin Doubao DeepSeek until the V3 version, as well as the o1 series before the GPT series of models, are fast thinking.
They are more inclined to believe that Yuanbao topped the download list, the main player is DeepSeek, and many users download Yuanbao in order to try DeepSeek.
Figure Source App Store App Screenshot
Then look at the cast stream.
Yuanbao’s wave of streaming is very aggressive, on the one hand, relying on the internal ecological Tencent advertising, and on the other hand, relying on external channels such as Jitterbites Racer, etc. AppGrowing data shows that Yuanbao’s estimated amount of investment in February exceeded 300 million.
AI software engineer Qin Xiang said that Yuanbao adopts the strategy of casting a wide net with precise reach, and external channels such as microblogging, B station, Shake, etc. are mainly to expand the coverage of users. Utilizing the internal ecological WeChat search diversion circle of friends ads QQ browser and other Tencent system App full coverage is the most important, after all, these channels have a high degree of user trust and strong scene relevance, reach efficiency is extremely high.
Engaged in the search tool placement of small A also told FocusOne that the mainstream channel of AI search is Tencent advertising.
AppGrowing data shows that among the streaming channels of AI general-purpose apps, Tencent advertisements, WeChat QQ, Tencent News, Tencent Video and QQ Browser account for 70% to 80% of the total streaming channels.
This time, WeChat, as an ace channel, provides strong traffic support for Yuanbao. The search shows download Yuanbao Experience DeepSeek R1 Jump link Friend circle infomercials Public number article bottom Small program opening page have Yuanbao’s push There are also WeChat nine-gang entrance embedded.
In addition, Yuanbao’s publicity highlights that its networked search function opens up WeChat’s public number content library, which can retrieve more than 210 million historical articles in real time and can include 1.8 million new tweets added on a daily basis within 15 minutes. Xiao A feels that this move differentiates Yuanbao from other AI apps and can attract some users.
It’s not hard to find that advertising played a key role in Yuanbao’s ascent to the top, while Tencent’s ecological traffic support was an important cornerstone of its success.
Yuanbao’s rise, timing is also important
In the field of AI applications, advertising has become an industry consensus. Previously, Kimi and Doubao, with the cast flow, seized a lot of the market.
In particular, Kimi, as a startup company launched the application, relying on its own technical advantages and heavy investment in the flow, last year in a group of large companies to kill.
Practitioners believe that cast flow is especially effective in the field of AI applications because the threshold of AI application experience is not high, and users do not have too strong loyalty, which is easy to be quickly converted through the flow.
Jiang Shu said that at present, the practicality of the big model is still not strong, and the users attracted by the TO C application created are mostly tasters, and they often give up quickly after use because the product is not as expected, not smart, not interesting, and not problem solving.
This user behavior pattern is the reason why streaming can play a key role. And finding the right time to cast flow, but also can achieve twice the result with half the effort.
Yuanbao’s timing is very skillful. After DeepSeek educated the market User awareness of AI increased dramatically, the effect of the casting was much better than last year when the outside world did not have a high awareness of AI.
Jiang Shu believes that the explosion of DeepSeek is now characterized by the breakthrough of the circle of all people, indicating that the public’s cognition of the application of AI models has been formed. Yuanbao also took over DeepSeek users by virtue of the advantage of stable use in the case of frequent busy DeepSeek R1 official website, and further expanded the user coverage through streaming.
And Tencent also has a unique advantage in casting flow, that is, the ecology of the Tencent system to do support, and the burning of money is also more accurate.
Source: WeChat Circle Screenshot
Only in February, nearly 300 million yuan of investment flow amount, Tencent’s investment speed strength scale, are far more than the previous Doubao and Kimi.
This strategy is also in line with Tencent’s consistent product thinking, which is not to act blindly at the early stage of the market, but to wait for the market to gradually mature and have successful cases verified, and then find the right time to make a decisive move. Its core strategy is to rapidly capture the market by investing heavily and mobilizing Tencent’s applications to work together.
For example, Tencent has adopted a similar strategy for its party game Dream Star. A year after NetEase’s Egg Party caught fire, Tencent launched a similar game, Yuan Meng Xing, which not only adopted innovative gameplay, but also massively invested in advertisements on platforms such as WeChat, QQ, Jitterbug, B-station and Xiaohongshu, as well as cash strategies such as 10 billion yuan in subsidies to attract players to download the game and high-profile announcements of the first phase of the game will be invested in the game eco-incentive program to invest 1.4 billion yuan in the game, which quickly smashed the game’s downloads and the peak of the estimated income, but this state of affairs lasted less than a month only. This move quickly smashed the game downloads and estimated revenue peak, but this state of affairs only lasted less than a month.
Due to the general AI big model business prospects are not clear, Yuanbao from last year after the launch of the market has maintained a low profile, belonging to Tencent’s defensive business. It was only after accessing DeepSeek that it began to invest large sums in streaming.
Why did Tencent choose to ramp up Yuanbao at this point in time?
Synthesizing the views of practitioners, the Tencent Mixed Big Model appeared late, and the modeling capabilities did not reach a level where it could completely crush its competitors, and the TO C application did not even have a first-mover advantage. For example, Kimi was launched on the market as early as October 2023, and Yuanbao was released at the end of May 2024.
In the ability Time are not first-mover advantage, Tencent will not easily for Yuanbao to invest a lot of traffic, but DeepSeek’s open source pulls together the technical gap between the various big models, TO C application of the competition has also been pulled to the same level, at this moment it is Yuanbao out of a good opportunity.
In the pre-investment of flow and mid-term, Yuanbao also made technical preparations.
Qin Xiang said, DeepSeek R1 for Yuanbao to provide in-depth reasoning capabilities, support for multimodal such as picture parsing, to enhance the coverage of practical scenarios, TurboS as a self-research fast thinking model, in the knowledge of Mathematics, such as Benchmark performance against DeepSeekV3. This also makes the dual-model Yuanbao, whether it is the speed of response, or the ability of multimodal picture comprehension, document parsing, have significantly improved to facilitate the user’s use of the application. This also makes Yuanbao with dual models, whether it is response speed, multimodal ability, image comprehension, file parsing, all have been significantly improved, user-friendly.
Can Yuanbao retain users?
Despite Yuanbao’s short-lived rise to the top, the challenges it faces cannot be ignored. The market’s biggest concern is whether Yuanbao will repeat Kimi’s mistake of experiencing low user retention at the end of its highly invested advertising traffic.
Kimi, one of the most successful C-end AI apps in 2024, has been accompanied by the controversy of burning money on marketing in exchange for users.
AppGrowing data shows that since March 2024, Kimi’s advertisement investment has reached tens of millions of dollars almost every month, and last year’s year was estimated to be over 900 million. Kimi was once on the hot search because of burning money for 100 million dollars in 20 days.
However, even so, Kimi’s market position has not been maintained for a long time, DeepSeek appeared and quickly replaced its popularity.
QuestMobile data show that on January 20, January 26, DeepSeek burst fire period, Kimi weekly active user scale growth of less than 28, the same period DeepSeek weekly active user scale growth of more than 750.
The phenomenon of high marketing and low retention is not an exception.
Doudou, which dominated the number one AI app downloads in China, has also relied on large-scale advertisement investment to realize the latecomer to the top.AppGrowing data shows that Doudou’s cumulative investment in 2024 exceeded 475 million yuan, but now most of the heat has also been taken away by DeepSeek.
In September of last year, some practitioners calculated that the user retention rates of big model apps Doubao Kimi Wen XiaoYin Xunfei Starfire Yuan Yuan were all less than 1 percent after 30 days of download.
Liu Cong, a well-known expert in the field of large modeling, pointed out that the large modeling apps on the market do not have high user stickiness, and only a small number of professional practitioners will insist on using them every day, while most of the ordinary users are just trying to get a taste of the freshness of the apps, trying to download them after seeing the promotions, and then turning their heads to run away once there is a new app that is hotter.
Qin Xiang also said that the current big model application and user demand matching degree is insufficient, most of the AI application function is single, such as only support for the question and answer, can not continue to meet the complex needs of users, the quality of the generated content is not stable, and the lack of personalization, such as finance, education, and other vertical scenarios are not enough to adapt.
The current momentum of Yuanbao, although access to the top big model DeepsSeek, has not solved this problem. Jiang Shu believes that the development of domestic AI is still in the early stages, even the basic requirements of obedience and stability are not limited.
In short, Yuanbao’s rise to the top is more like the result of the synergy of technology, traffic and ecology, rather than relying solely on technical advantages.
And the top is only the first step, the more users, the greater the attention. Recently, Yuanbao has been accused of containing overbearing terms in the user agreement, which has triggered a controversy.
The clause states that the content uploaded to the platform by users will grant Tencent and its affiliates an irrevocable permanent free and geographically unrestricted license to use the content, covering acts such as storing using copying editing publishing, and can be used for purposes such as model optimization academic research and marketing.
In this regard, Tencent has publicly apologized, saying that the latest version of Yuanbao has increased the data management function, a new experience optimization switch has been added, and it is closed by default, and the input and output content will not be used for model optimization.
Qin Xiang pointed out that at this moment, Yuanbao not only needs to be further upgraded technically, but also needs to find a balance between technical depth and user value, only then can it avoid falling into the trap of burning money for growth.
How long can the high position of the first download volume last for Yuanbao, which has smashed the traffic with heavy money? We all have a wait-and-see attitude.
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