At one time, before electronic maps were available or ubiquitous, people got around either by asking people around or by using paper maps. How many of you have walked out of a train station and the first people to greet you are those old ladies selling paper maps? At that time, people who wanted to go to a long distance always looked at the map before going out, and then printed the route, or they could ask directions from some kiosks that paid for them. But since the advent of electronic maps, women have had no choice but to change careers…
Speaking of which, map navigation applications start from people’s need for “travel” in “food, clothing, housing and transportation”. At first, it was just a simple transportation tool, but with the change of the market and the diversification of people’s needs, it has gradually evolved into a comprehensive service platform based on geographical location.
Now in map navigation kind of market, there are many players, gaode map, Baidu map, Tencent map, Sogou map, Google map, Kelide navigation, and map. But today we’re talking about Baidu Map, which is 13 years old.
The long road to fame for Baidu Map was not easy
Baidu map, founded in 2005, is an elder statesman in the map navigation industry. Today, Baidu Map is loved by the market and people, but when it first launched, Baidu Map was not as popular as it is now.
On the one hand, restricted by the market environment and technology, baidu map launched at that time only serves ten cities, only with basic functions such as query route, but in the use of professional requirements are relatively high, sometimes ranging function to view the distance, the operation is not convenient, let many users daunting.
Second, Baidu Map did not start mobile strategy at that time, but the launch of Google Maps in the same year in the United States has supported mobile use and launched Google Earth. Then came Street View in 2007 and UGC in 2008. In the attention to Chinese localization at the same time coupled with strong technical support, Google Map launched Earth, Mars, Sky and other cool map sub-products outside the Earth, attracting the attention of many users, it also won a lot of market share, is a big rival of Baidu Map.
After that, Baidu Map did not follow Google map frontal stem, mobile strategy aside, to take other routes. Baidu Map provides users with a simple operation experience by improving the accuracy of map data and enriching product functions, such as adding THREE-DIMENSIONAL views. In addition, Baidu Map is also increasing the speed of the layout of other cities. Relevant data show that as of June 2010, Baidu Map market share has been higher than 55%, sitting on the industry’s first throne. Especially in 2010, when China’s mobile Internet ushered in the explosion period, Baidu Mobile strategy was officially launched, adding a fire to Baidu Map. During the three years from 2010 to 2013, Baidu Map became the largest open map platform, with daily positioning demand exceeding 23 billion times and POI totaling 40 million.
While Baidu map continues to strengthen itself, other brands are also constantly upgrading to strengthen themselves. Take Amap as an example. Since its acquisition by Ali, AmAP has started to strengthen itself with the help of Ali’s talents, scientific research and data advantages, which has brought good user experience to the platform users and further strengthened the stickiness between the platform and users. This is baidu Map do not want to see.
In fact, China’s first Internet service providers are established in 1999 map line world, in 2005 was sogou acquisition became today’s Sogou map. Then, map navigation software such as Autonavi and Google Maps appeared one after another, and the market gradually became lively. Baidu map in addition to the same stage with these platforms to grab market share, but also to prevent Tencent map and other up-and-comers catch up. In this case before the Wolf after the tiger, Baidu map or guarded his position in the market, become one of the map navigation market instructions.
Why did Baidu Map gradually catch up with Autonavi?
According to the latest data from Analysys qianfan, active users in China’s map APP field increased from January to March this year. In January, 394 million users were active, up 2.87 percent month-on-month; In February, 4.01%, an increase of 1.78%; It was 443 million in March, up 10.50 percent month-on-month. It can be seen that the scale of mobile map navigation applications in China is expanding.
According to the data report released by Analysys qianfan, in the first quarter of this year, In the list of active user coverage of China’s mobile map navigation APP field, Baidu Map takes up 52.98% of the total number of active users. Whether this means, Baidu map is already hit all over the world in the market invincible hand, became the map industry in the east undefeated? The answer, of course, is no.
At present, the map navigation market basically presents the situation of three males contending for hegemony, Gaode Map, Baidu map both fighting constantly, Tencent map is the fierce chase. Baidu Map ranked first in map navigation with 293,897,600 monthly users, followed by Autonavi and Tencent Map, according to the China APP Rankings for the first half of 2018 released by IMedia Consulting. Although Baidu Maps is slightly ahead of Amap in terms of monthly active users, amAP’s market penetration is no. 1 in the map navigation category, which shows that there is no clear winner. And don’t say sogou map, Google map, map and other map navigation platform, alone Gaode, Tencent is enough baidu map by.
Earlier, Baidu Map voice broadcast and prompt messages suffered a large-scale failure, the voice instructions and map displayed information seriously inconsistent, many users took the wrong way, even “almost taken to the ditch” predicament. In view of the occurrence of a large area of fault events, Baidu map aspects give the response is: in the platform service upgrade occurred when the fault. In any case, this incident is to burn in the market is flourishing Baidu Map pour a ladle of cold water. Such a major mistake will greatly affect the reputation of Baidu Map, and even make many users turn to other platforms such as Autonavi, Tencent Map, which is definitely not good for Baidu Map.
In addition, Baidu Map also has a difficult hidden is, unlike Autonavi, its accuracy in practical application, data completeness and map update speed are slower. This means that baidu Map, which does not have the qualification of drawing and testing, will not have enough freedom to upgrade and innovate itself, but will be limited to map data providers everywhere. For map navigation applications, the research and development of high-precision maps can greatly reflect the advantages of the platform, but Baidu Map is also slightly weak.
In any case, the importance of Baidu map in the market can not be ignored. At present the market said more map navigation software, nothing more than Baidu map, Gaode map and Tencent map. This one phenomenon is enough to illustrate a point, that is, in the map navigation market, Baidu map is not enough to become the existence of the day.
How should Baidu map continue to maintain the dominant position?
Times are changing and society is progressing. Once only used as a map tool to query routes, it has now been upgraded to a comprehensive service platform with intelligent navigation, location search, peripheral query, hot spot tips and bus routes. Although the current market is lively and extraordinary, masses of English gather together, but when it comes to map navigation software, baidu map is inevitable. Although there are many obstacles in the way of its forward development, but from the market demand and the diversified skills of enterprises, Baidu Map to want to go up a floor is not impossible.
With the diversified development of market demand, maps carry not only map location data, but also geographical services such as catering, shopping and tourism. Therefore, enterprises need to make themselves “richer” if they want to gain more market share. Take Baidu Map as an example. With the help of AI technology, it has achieved evolution. By combining knowledge graph technology and map technology, it builds POI high-precision knowledge graph, bringing more diverse results to users.
For map navigation software, inaccurate positioning and navigation errors are the most fatal. Not long ago, Baidu Maps received a lot of abuse and even lost a lot of users. From this, Baidu map wants to regain market trust, must first product “stable” good ability to go. It can strengthen itself through deep learning, image recognition, analysis of traffic big data and other technologies, and provide users with more accurate maps, so as to achieve the purpose of building a good brand image. There is also a point to note that in bringing high precision at the same time, the update speed should also follow up on the line, only to get rid of map data suppliers, Baidu map to establish their own forces, strengthen its combat effectiveness in the map navigation battlefield.
On the market, many products look bright and sound exciting, but are not practical. In the case of map navigation software, many apps have this pain point: in order to change the destination while the car is driving, it has to stop the car and re-enter a new destination. But doing so is a bit too cumbersome, a waste of time and a threat to your safety if you have a short fuse and type text while driving.
Based on this, Baidu Map launched an intelligent voice system to deal with this pain point. At present, Baidu Map has realized full voice interaction. It is reported that the number of users of Baidu Map voice assistant has exceeded 100 million. Users can not only control the map by voice, but also carry out complex route planning on the map. For example, “bypass the so-and-so shopping mall to go home, I want to go to the market” or “from the company to home, I want the traffic lights less traffic jams, the fastest way home” and so on. In addition, Baidu Map launched AR real navigation, personalized recommendation and other functions, but also for Baidu Map brought a lot of users.
Overall look, although there are many map navigation products, but now have the ability to no more than a few. As a large position in the market and the voice of Baidu map, although there are still some map update speed is slow, reputation has declined and other large and small faults, but it is always strong. As long as Baidu map can find their pain points, in the solution to their pain points at the same time constantly upgrade to strengthen their own, then everything is possible.
Article/Liu Kuang public number, ID: Liukuang110, this article is the first Chinese fir car network