Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3091 Dial

Zhou Buqi had already given up on the Korean market.

Except for Ziwei Cloud, other businesses under Ziweixing International have not developed well in South Korea.

He even sold Yahoo's Korean assets to Samsung.

Zhou Buqi was mentally prepared for Helo's development in Korea and was not optimistic about it. Otherwise, he would not have invested in Kakao and provided Kakao with financial, technical and other support for its development in Korea.

Now, Kurian says it may be possible to retain some of Helo's business in South Korea.

  Why not?

At least you can try.

If it fails, there will be no loss. If it succeeds, it will provide a new idea for Helo's future global development.

It is impossible for Helo to monopolize the social communication market in every country in the world.

Take Japan for example.

Helo's current product structure is not suitable for Japanese user habits, so Zhou Buqi specially established Ziweixing Japan, which has a dedicated Helo product team. It has made major product modifications to Helo and launched the Japanese version of Helo.

However, not every country has a population as large as Japan or such strong consumption power.

Many tiny countries are not worth tailoring to their needs.

And even if it is tailor-made, the opportunity has been missed.

This means that Helo will inevitably face fierce competition in some markets, and may even be in a weak position in the competition. How to retain user stickiness when the competition fails and users gradually leave? Kurian's proposed payment method is likely to be one idea!

There won’t be too many users of the paid model, but at least the fire can be kept alive!

With the spark, there is a possibility of making a comeback in the future.

In fact, WhatsApp in its previous life adopted this strategy. WhatsApp is a free product, but in some countries and regions, it needs to be paid to use. At one time, there were rumors that Hong Kong and Taiwan would have to pay, which caused a lot of controversy. Because Hong Kong Island has WeChat competing, and Taiwan generally uses Line, WhatsApp is not competitive enough. However, it caused a lot of controversy, and later it was abandoned and the free model was adopted.

But once it becomes free to operate, WhatsApp will no longer be able to make money in Hong Kong and Taiwan and will have to lose money to operate.

Tang Binchen said bluntly: "I am not very optimistic about this idea. It is not Internet-friendly at all."

Kurian said: "At least we can try. Instead of waiting for Helo to completely withdraw from the Korean market, we can take some special measures. Maybe it will work. As I said before, payment is the best way to increase user stickiness."

Zhou Buqi made the decision and said, "Then let's try it in Korea. It doesn't matter if we fail."

Tang Binchen nodded, "Okay."

Zhou Buqi looked at Kurian and said curiously, "Aren't you targeting Microsoft?"

Kurian said calmly: "There is no targeting. The most important thing is to make the most favorable choice for the long-term development of Helo. Helo is a completely free product now, and there is no paid service. This is a little worrying for me. Now Helo is the most popular social product in Europe and the United States, and we do not deny this."

Tang Binchen smiled and said: "Helo is currently the app with the most users and the highest daily activity in the world!"

"Indeed, it's an achievement we are very proud of," Kurian said solemnly. "But I've also noticed that there are too many products similar to Helo on the market. There are all kinds of communication products. Even in our company, there are similar products like Ucgram and Snapchat."

Tang Binchen said "hmm".

“Helo is now the most popular app in the world. We should take advantage of this favorable situation and make Helo’s strategic structure more perfect and stronger. Relying solely on the free model and social advertising will have huge risks in the long run. Once another communication product that is recognized by the public appears in the market, Helo will lack the means to attract users, which will put us in a passive position,” said Kurian.

Zhou Buqi agrees. “Europe and the United States are different from China. WeChat doesn’t need to worry about many things, but Helo must be on guard in overseas markets.”

Don’t worry about WeChat.

Because domestic methods can be more cruel.

If you want a new popular app to appear in the market, you must have a "fission" promotion, that is, a viral promotion. The best way to promote virally is the social circle of WeChat. One person recommends it to his circle of friends, and his friends recommend it to their circle of friends... and it can explode in a short period of time.

There is no fear in China.

Because WeChat can directly block the source of this fission, prohibiting the other party from using WeChat for promotion in the name of "safety", "anti-fraud", "anti-MLM", etc. This channel is locked, and it is too difficult for a new national-level App to appear in the market.

This is not allowed in foreign countries.

This is a vicious competition that takes advantage of the monopoly position. If Helo dares to ban its competitors, it will face lawsuits. Therefore, there will definitely be many competitors who will continue to promote through the Helo platform.

This is the hidden danger.

How can we ensure that when new and more interesting competitors emerge, users will not choose competitors but stay with Helo?

This requires further improving Helo's user stickiness. Tang Binchen said: "Helo provides more and more services, the product experience is also excellent enough, and there are core competitions such as Helo payment and Helo smart assistant. In this regard, we have a great advantage."

Zhou Buqi said: "Even so, relying solely on social advertising is too simplistic."

Kurian said: "Helo is a free software, and this positioning cannot be changed. However, we can provide some paid value-added services for certain groups of people. Paid services have greater stickiness. For example, Microsoft's Skype, such a bad software, has been thriving for so many years. No matter how hard Helo tries, it can't beat them. Didn't you notice? Because Skype is a paid service."

"Skype?" Tang Binchen suddenly realized and was a little surprised. "You are targeting Skype?"

Kurian asked in return, "Why not?"

Tang Binchen took a deep breath and said, "This is really a major change!"

Kurian said: "Helo is the best Internet product. Do we need to be afraid of Skype? No matter how open Microsoft is, it is impossible to turn into a real Internet company. We have the greatest advantage in the free model. In other words, in Helo's strengths, Skype can't compete with us at all. As long as we show value in Skype's strengths, then we have a chance to defeat Skype!"

Zhou Buqi understood what Kurian meant.

In fact, he had considered this idea in the past two years.

Among the current communication products, Helo ranks first in terms of user base.

The second place is not Facebook Message owned by Facebook, but Microsoft's Skype.

This is very illogical.

  Why Microsoft?

When it comes to mobile communication products, can Microsoft be better than Facebook?

Because of Skype's paid nature.

Skype has the function of making phone calls. This is not like WeChat calls, where one WeChat user calls another WeChat user... Instead, Skype users can dial directly, transfer directly to the operator's phone channel through the mobile Internet channel, and call the other party's mobile phone number or landline number directly.

This is so convenient!

The charges for calls made through Skype are lower than normal phone charges, especially for international calls. In many underdeveloped regions and countries, international calls are very expensive. Using Skype's paid call service is both convenient and cost-effective.

This is Skype's biggest competitive advantage.

The live broadcast area had previously had the idea of ​​​​Helo promoting this business as well.

However, after considering it several times, I gave up for many reasons.

The main reason is that you bite off more than you can chew.

At that time, Ziweixing International had not yet gone public and was not strong enough. It was already in direct confrontation with Facebook and the competitive pressure was already very great. There was no need to provoke Microsoft again, and there was no need to fight a war on two fronts while being attacked from both sides.

Times have changed and the situation is different now.

Ziweixing International is already a listed giant with stable operations!

Its latest market value even surpassed Microsoft, making it the world’s third largest technology giant after Apple and Google!

Facebook no longer poses much of a threat.

Microsoft also changed its CEO and is at its weakest period.

  Helo is now more powerful than ever and is not afraid of strong enemies!

Kurian said: "Although Helo is the app with the largest number of users in the world, its coverage is still too small. The only thing that can truly cover every user is the operator's mobile phone number. If you want to truly achieve full coverage of social products, you must have a paid dial-up function. If a Helo user can dial a non-Helo user, in order to save money, you can call the other party and ask him to download and install Helo, and then the two can use Helo to make free calls through the dedicated network line."

Zhou Buqi agrees. "Indeed, the dial-up paid service can not only open up new strategic space for Helo, but also find a better way for Helo to split. No app can cover everyone, but mobile phone numbers can. Only through the split of mobile phone numbers can we achieve the greatest penetration rate. In terms of products, Helo is much better than Skype. The value of Skype's existence lies in its dial-up function. If Helo also follows up with this function, it can reduce the necessity of Skype's existence!"

Kurian said in a deep voice: "Microsoft has been very dishonest recently. Especially Microsoft Cloud, which has introduced many strategies targeting Ziwei Cloud and shamelessly poached many people from us. If I don't fight back, I will be very passive and many people in the company will be indignant. At the same time, the outside world will think that we are weak and can be bullied. If we don't fight back, we will easily fall into internal and external troubles."

Zhou Buqi thought he was exaggerating a bit, but his point was right.

If Kurian is weak, how can he create cohesion among the Indian community? Only by hitting Nadella hard can he raise his banner among the Indian community again.

“I agree that Helo will launch a paid value-added service for dial-up calls.”

Zhou Buqi gave his answer without much thought.

He had thought about this idea many times.

  Now is the time!

Let’s do it!

(End of this chapter)