Home » Completed the handover of Sogou’s personnel and products. Tencent established a new business line to fight search again-Sogou 搜狗搜

Completed the handover of Sogou’s personnel and products. Tencent established a new business line to fight search again-Sogou 搜狗搜

by admin

On the morning of October 15, the acquisition of Tencent and Sogou completed the final step. The two parties formally handed over. Sogou employees changed their identities to join Tencent. Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan issued an internal letter to leave Sogou, and accepted the invitation of Tencent COO Ren Yuxin and was hired as a Tencent Group consultant. Tencent has also set up a new business line to integrate search and information flow businesses.

access:

Microsoft Surface Pro 8/Go 3 National Bank Edition starts with a pre-sale minimum of 2988

In September last year, Tencent and Sogou signed a merger agreement. On July 13 this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation approved Tencent’s acquisition of Sogou’s equity. Since then, Sogou issued an announcement on September 24, announcing that it would complete the privatization and delisting and become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent. This handover means that this 383-day acquisition has come to an end.

Wang Xiaochuan bids farewell to Sogou

As Sogou’s CEO, Wang Xiaochuan sent out his last internal email today, saying goodbye to Sogou, the 18-year-old Sogou that he founded and grew up with and has more than 400 million active users.

Wang Xiaochuan is 43 years old this year. Sogou was a project he started in Sohu in 2003, when he was 25 years old. With the title of “genius boy”, he took Sogou after several storms of almost being acquired, and moved towards independence, towards listing, and then towards delisting to sell to Tencent.

To this day, Sogou is not a failed product no matter from which angle it is viewed. Sogou’s input method has 484 million daily active users, and Sogou’s search market ranks second. This time Sogou sold to Tencent for US$1.2 billion, exceeding the parent company’s Sohu’s total market value of US$860 million.

For Sohu, Sogou is an embarrassing product. Sogou’s search business, with the highest revenue, has a market share far less than that of Baidu. Moreover, under the impact of information flow and short videos, Sogou’s revenue has been declining year by year. Data show that from 2020Q2 to 2021Q1, its revenues were 261.2 million, 216.7 million, 189 million and 137.2 million US dollars, respectively. Sogou’s last financial report before delisting, total revenue for the second quarter was US$147.5 million, a year-on-year decrease of 44%.

Sogou is a product that still needs to continue blood transfusion. Unfortunately, Sohu itself is also struggling to survive. Every time Zhang Chaoyang comes out for an interview, a topic that cannot escape is reducing losses. He said at the Sohu World Conference in December 2020: “Sohu will be a profitable year if Sogou is not counted in 2020. It is really not easy.”

See also  European stocks rise, focus on growth. Milan the best, Saipem sprint

However, the Internet industry has always recognized the value of Sogou. The story of Wang Xiaochuan, who has been widely circulated in the arena, has prevented Sogou from being acquired several times, which is enough to prove the value of Sogou.

As early as 2010, Zhou Hongyi, who had a good relationship with Zhang Chaoyang, wanted to acquire Sogou. That time, Wang Xiaochuan found Alibaba Jack Ma and asked Alibaba to invest in Sogou. In the end, Alibaba and Sohu reached an agreement to establish a joint venture company to jointly develop Sogou. At that time, Wang Xiaochuan also persuaded Zhang Chaoyang to give Sogou the opportunity to establish an independent company.

In 2013, Zhou Hongyi once again proposed to acquire Sogou. This time, Wang Xiaochuan found Ma Huateng. Tencent became a major shareholder with Sogou for US$448 million, paving the way for the final purchase.

In addition to Zhang Chaoyang, Zhou Hongyi, Ma Yun, and Ma Huateng, Baidu Robin Li also expressed interest in the acquisition of Sogou. Wang Xiaochuan staged several thrilling moments between the giants and the big men.

By 2021, this time Sogou is really going to be acquired, and Wang Xiaochuan is really going to leave Sogou. According to the purchase price, Zhang Chaoyang and Sohu cashed out about 1.368 billion U.S. dollars in total, and Wang Xiaochuan cashed out 194 million U.S. dollars for a total of 1.26 billion yuan.

After Sogou was determined to be sold by Sohu last year, Wang Xiaochuan once posted a Moments to express his gratitude to Tencent for its recognition of Sogou’s value, technical capabilities, and product innovation capabilities. Today, he also thanked Tencent and Ma Huateng in internal emails, as well as Zhang Chaoyang. He said that Zhang Chaoyang is his spiritual godfather.

In the Internet circle, Wang Xiaochuan is a well-known “single CEO”. He once laughed to the media, “Sogou is my wife.” After bidding farewell to Sogou, Wang Xiaochuan said that he has gained greater ability to love his relatives and pursue a late arrival. Love.

His next move is also worthy of attention. In 3 years of this year, Wang Xiaochuan invested and founded a health consulting company. Beijing Wuji Health Consulting Co., Ltd. has a registered capital of 1 million yuan. The legal representative is Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan. The business scope is health consulting (excluding diagnosis and treatment services), technology development, and technical consulting. Wait. Wang Xiaochuan said that in the past 20 years, he has also been curious about life sciences. In the next 20 years, if we can contribute to the development of life sciences and medicine, and make a little contribution to public health, life will be more meaningful.

See also  Today’s stock market 0917丨Can the ChiNext rebound be the main force of the rebound?

Tencent Fights Search Again

A Sogou employee mentioned that he has changed to Tencent’s badge. According to HR’s notice, Sogou’s seniority can be extended to Tencent, and then he can enjoy the same benefits as Tencent’s regular employees, such as the Tencent Settlement Plan (after being employed for two years) From the company’s highest application to 900,000 yuan interest-free loan for the purchase of the first house at the workplace or social security), etc. “The level and salary have been communicated very early.” Although the salary increase rate has not been disclosed, he is quite satisfied with Tencent’s overall salary and welfare system.

According to Tencent’s official announcement, Sogou’s personnel and products have been merged and entered “Tencent Time.” Tencent’s mailbox and corporate WeChat took effect immediately for all Sogou employees on the 15th. Sogou’s age continues to Tencent, and the salary and benefits are aligned with Tencent’s same system; product and technology departments have also been integrated.

This morning, Tencent internally issued a document to establish an “information platform and service line” under PCG (Platform and Content Business Group), led by Yin Yu, vice president of Tencent, responsible for QQ browser, watch points, search, free novels, files and other businesses , Provide platforms and services such as information search, browsing consumption, editing and storage, and information services. In Sogou’s business handover, information products such as search and browsers are merged into this business line.

Regarding the future main strategic direction of the newly established “information platform and service line”, Yin Yu mentioned in his internal letter: Create a tool for the Internet to obtain information and services in the next 30 years, and strive to become a super window for people to understand the world and explore the unknown.

Sogou also has services such as AI and input methods. According to Tencent PCG sources, Sogou’s AI technology and products, as well as the input method business are merged into the PCG technology public line. Maps with strong relevance to enterprise-level businesses are incorporated into CSIG (Cloud and Smart Industry Business Group) smart travel and other related businesses.

See also  Boston Dynamics Robot perfectly reproduces the dance of the Rolling Stones "Start Me Up"-European Music

This time, Tencent has integrated Sogou and incorporated information products such as search and browser into the new business line “information platform and service line.” According to the reporter’s understanding, after being merged into Sogou, this business line has been upgraded at the PCG level, which shows that Tencent attaches great importance to search.

IiMedia Consulting CEO Zhang Yi told reporters that search has important value for companies that can be monetized by advertising and for e-commerce companies. “In the user search process, it is equivalent to invisibly telling search engines about their needs. If ByteDance owns Baidu, when its users scan Toutiao or Douyin today, Toutiao and Douyin will more accurately push users’ favorite ads. The business conversion rate will be much higher.”

Tencent has also invested heavily in search before. I tried Tencent Soso as early as 2010, but unfortunately, it did not have a market advantage. After 2 years of investment, the head of Tencent Soso resigned successively, and this business failed. “Search requires technical reserves, requires computing power, and needs to concentrate on doing it. Tencent has not done a good job of searching on its own, so it is better to acquire ready-made Sogou to fill its own strength.” Zhang Yi thinks.

This time the integration of Sogou and the establishment of a new business line, the aforementioned Tencent PCG people mentioned that they hope to aggregate high-quality information and direct services to create a super window for people to understand the world and explore the unknown. This is not just an ecological, The needs of the scene are also the needs of the company-level strategic layout.

In the past year, in addition to Tencent’s efforts to search, Bytedance and Ali have also played chess pieces in the search field. In June last year, Alibaba’s innovative business business group established an intelligent search business department to increase its strength in the search field. After ByteDance launched the Toutiao search app, it has also been continuously optimized, and it has been launched on the whole web search and the web version has been launched.

In this search again, Tencent will not only face Baidu Search, which still holds a major share, but also compete with its old rivals. The search industry that has been silent for a long time will become lively again.

.

You may also like

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More

Privacy & Cookies Policy