亞洲聊天應用市場"三國大戰"
There are more than 4.4 billion people in the Asia-Pacific region. In some areas, few people have mobile devices. In others, the market is so saturated with electronics that people deeply engage with their smartphones—more than consumers on any other continent, according to some estimates.
亞太地區擁有超過44億人口，在某些地區，擁有移動設備的人還很少。但在另外一些國家，市場上的電子產品琳琅滿目，人們日常對智能手機的依賴度程度比任何其它大洲的消費者還要高。All of this helps explain why so many technology companies see the region as potentially lucrative. In one of the hotter areas of the technology industry, mobile communications applications, a wicked chat war is brewing. China’s WeChat, Japan’s Line, and Facebook’s WhatsApp (American in origin, but especially popular in Asia) are engaged in a fight for the hearts and mobile devices of billions of people.
這就解釋了爲什麼很多科技公司都把亞太地區當作搖錢樹。作爲科技行業的熱門領域之一，移動通信應用領域正在醞釀着一場大戰。中國的微信（WeChat）、日本的Line和Facebook的WhatsApp已成鼎足之勢，即將爲爭奪幾十億用戶展開惡鬥。
“The chat apps are all competing with each other in a platform land grab across Asian markets,” says Shiv Putcha, an analyst for IDC based in Mumbai. “They have extended well beyond the original SMS replacement service to include entertainment, gaming, and now payments. In effect, they are fast becoming the mobile equivalents of the online ecosystems built by the likes of Google and Facebook.”
IDC公司駐孟買分析師希夫o普恰指出：“這些聊天應用正在亞洲市場上展開一場平臺爭奪戰。它們的發展已經遠遠超越最初的短信服務，現已包含娛樂、遊戲甚至是支付等諸多功能。實際上，它們在移動平臺上的影響力，很快就堪比谷歌（Google）和Facebook等公司在網絡生態系統中的影響力。”
In preparation for the coming fight, the chat providers are building war chests and forging alliances to improve their chances of success. Tencent, the Chinese Internet giant, recently bought 15 percent of , the second largest e-commerce website in China, with the intention of adding a mobile payment function to its hugely popular WeChat platform. Tencent (which is Asia’s most valuable Internet company with a market capitalization that hovers around $159 billion) also plans to create an exclusive shopping channel for , thereby connecting WeChat’s 438 million young Chinese users to the e-commerce portal.
爲了準備即將到來的大戰，這些聊天應用背後的公司正在抓緊排兵佈陣，締結同盟，以增加成功的機率。比如中國網絡巨頭騰訊公司（Tencent）最近剛剛收購了京東商城（）15%的股權，後者是中國第二大電子商務網站。這筆交易的目的是爲了在微信這款熱門應用中添加移動支付功能。騰訊（它也是亞洲最有價值的互聯網公司，市值約1590億美元）還計劃爲京東建立一個獨家的購物渠道，使微信的4.38億年輕的中國用戶可以輕鬆登陸這家電商門戶網站。Japan’s Line Corporation is Tencent’s biggest Asian chat rival. The company has filed for an initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is expected to raise $9.8 billion. “Product innovation will be a strong differentiating factor at this level of chat app competition,” says Neha Dharia, an analyst at Ovum. “Line seems to have understood this change in the market and its I.P.O. move makes perfect sense.”
日本的Line公司是騰訊在亞洲的最大對手。該公司已經在東京證券交易所（Tokyo Stock Exchange）遞交了首次公開募股申請書，預計將融資98億美元。Ovum公司分析師尼哈o達利亞指出：“在這個層次的聊天應用競爭中，產品創新將是決定成敗的一個重要因素。看來Line已經瞭解了市場的這種變革，它的IPO之舉也是非常明智的。”Meanwhile, consolidation is taking place in the market. Silicon Valley’s Facebook and Tokyo’s Rakuten have acquired WhatsApp and Viber, respectively, allowing the acquired companies to focus on developing new products and expanding their user base without having to worry about funds.
與此同時，這個市場上也不時上演着收購大戲。比如硅谷的Facebook和東京的樂天公司（Rakuten）分別收購了WhatsApp和Viber，使這些被收購的公司可以不必擔心資金問題，專心研發新產品，擴展他們的用戶羣。Viber, founded by four Israeli partners and acquired earlier this year for $900 million, is particularly interesting because it is considered to be a clone of Skype MSFT -0.04% , the popular Microsoft-owned communications software. Some argue that Viber is better suited to the task than the real McCoy.
Viber是一款由四名以色列合夥人創辦的聊天應用，今年早些時候以9億美元的價格被日本樂天公司收購。Viber的有趣之處在於，很多人認爲它是微軟（Microsoft）熱門通訊軟件Skype的克隆版。有些人甚至認爲Viber在通訊上比Skype表現得更出色。WhatsApp continues to enjoy massive global reach, but its future in Asia is unclear. Compared to rival applications, the service has limited functionality. Barring product improvements, its popularity could be dependent on its ability to leverage Facebook’s FB -0.52% immense user base and integrate with its namesake network and messaging system—a possibility WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum dashed in February. “No plans for integration with Facebook whatsoever,” he said at an industry conference, suggesting a post-acquisition trajectory similar to that of Instagram.
WhatsApp繼續在全球範圍內享有大量用戶羣，但它在亞洲的前景則不那麼清晰。與競爭對手相比，WhatsApp的缺陷在於功能還不夠豐富。除了產品創新以外，WhatsApp能否獲得更大範圍的流行，還取決於它能否成功利用龐大的Facebook用戶羣，能否與其網絡與信息系統進行整合，不過WhatsApp的CEO詹o庫姆今年二月曾否定過這個可能，他在一次行業會議上表示：“目前沒有與Facebook進行整合的計劃。”說明WhatsApp被收購後的發展軌跡，很可能和Instagram差不多。“WhatsApp is for the global market but it’s weaker in Asia,” says Sandy Shen, an analyst for Gartner based in Shanghai. “WeChat is targeting the Chinese community worldwide, so it also has global presence. But its positioning is different.”
高德納公司（Gartner）駐上海分析師沈哲怡表示：“WhatsApp面向的是全球市場，但它在亞洲相對較弱，微信把目光瞄準了全球華人社區，所以它也在全球佔據一席之地，但定位是不一樣的。”And still there are are others: South Korea’s Kakao and India’s Hike are also popular services but are not considered significant threats to WeChat and Line. “China is where the real battles will occur,” Putcha says. “Tencent is way ahead with WeChat and instant messaging service QQ. But Line is getting traction in Southeast Asia and India by offering free calls on top of all their other services.”
這個市場還有一些其他競爭對手，如韓國的Kakao和印度的Hike也都是很熱門的服務，但對微信和Line還算不上嚴重的威脅。普恰表示：“真正的戰爭會發生在中國市場。騰訊憑藉微信和即時通訊工具QQ已經領先了一步。但是Line已經在東南亞和印度憑藉免費電話等服務產生了一定的吸引力。”And that’s to say nothing of future competition. Alibaba, the world’s largest e-commerce company with annual sales exceeding those of Amazon and eBay combined, has started its own instant-messaging service called Laiwang. The company BABA -3.87% is also developing mobile games, videos, and a mobile search service with the Beijing-based browser company UCWeb.
未來這個領域的競爭還會愈發激烈。作爲全球最大的電商公司，阿里巴巴（Alibaba）的年銷售額超過了亞馬遜（Amazon）和易趣(eBay)的總和，如今阿里巴巴也開始啓動自家的即時通訊服務“來往”。另外阿里巴巴也在與北京的瀏覽器公司優視科技（UCWeb）一道，開發移動遊戲、視頻和移動搜索服務。Why would Alibaba engage in such an effort? To counter Tencent’s partnership with its arch e-commerce rival , of course. (Tencent continues to stack its Internet platform with additional services. Most recently, it received permission from Chinese regulators to create a private bank.)
爲什麼阿里巴巴也要進軍這個領域？當然是爲了抗衡其宿敵京東與騰訊的結盟。（騰訊仍在繼續通過增加其它服務，爲其打造的互聯網平臺添磚加瓦。最近，騰訊獲得了中國監管機構的許可，即將開辦一家民營銀行。）Which all goes to say that the battle over chat apps in Asia has only just begun.
這一切都表明，在亞洲，圍繞聊天應用的戰爭纔剛剛開始。
