Less than a year after the sale to Tencent, most of Sogou’s original businesses have gradually lost their “names”.
On August 12, Sogou search announced that it had officially stopped its service at 23:59 on August 8, and the subsequent Sogou search app will not be available, while the web version of Sogou search can still be used. At present, all the data of the Sogou search app Access is no longer possible.
It is worth mentioning that as early as January this year, Sogou Search announced that due to business adjustments, the Sogou Search App will be upgraded to the Bingo App. Homepage information flow.
Regrettably, the “Sogou APP”, which has changed its vest, has not brought new vitality to Sogou search.
Today’s Bingo App has been quietly removed from the major app stores, and has completely withdrawn from the stage of history together with the Sogou Search App.
Leifeng.com learned that since Sogou announced its sale to Tencent, it has successively shut down most of its non-core main businesses, including Sogou Maps, Sogou Reading, Sogou Loan APP, Sogou Account, etc.
In September 2021, Sogou announced the completion of the privatization transaction and the completion of the delisting. According to the announcement, Sogou announced the completion of the merger with Tencent and became an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent Holdings.
At almost the same time, Sogou’s content open platform “Sogou” issued an announcement stating that the platform would cease operations and services at 17:00 on September 22, 2021 due to the company’s business adjustment.
Just a week after Sogou was merged into Tencent, the “Service Suspension Announcement” issued by Sogou’s Lending App showed that from October 23, 2021, Sogou Lending will suspend related services due to the company’s business adjustment.
In May of this year, Sogou Maps also announced that it was officially offline, and all related services were closed. Entering the original domain name will directly jump to Tencent Maps. Soon, the Sogou Maps app was removed from the app stores of Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc., which also marked Sogou Maps, which has a history of more than 20 years, and has officially withdrawn from the stage of China’s Internet.
In addition, Sogou Reading was also recently reported to have ceased operations.
Screenshots of users of the Black Cat Complaint Platform show that from 23:59 on August 8, 2022, Sogou Reading will cease to operate. According to the user’s complaint, after Sogou’s reading notice is out of service, all users’ money will be transferred to other app members. Disagreement or non-acceptance will be regarded as automatic waiver of rights and interests, and this compulsory behavior will not be accepted.
According to public information, Sogou used to have four major businesses: search, input method, browser and artificial intelligence.
According to the financial report released by Sogou, the total revenue in the second quarter of 2021 was US$147.5 million, of which search and search-related revenue was US$137.2 million; other revenue was US$10.3 million. Based on this calculation, Sogou’s main search business accounts for more than 90% of its total revenue.
As the last financial report on the eve of Tencent’s acquisition of Sogou, this financial report data seems to intuitively represent the development status of Sogou. Obviously, Sogou has never been able to get rid of the question of a single source of revenue, and the company’s ability to monetize in businesses other than search is seriously insufficient.
If it is said that the closure of Sogou, Sogou Borrowing, Sogou Reading, and Sogou Map is Tencent’s “chicken rib business” in the era of Wang Xiaochuan, then now, with the official delisting of the Sogou search APP, Sogou used to be valuable business has also begun to be accelerated.
Last year, after Sogou merged with Tencent, most of Sogou’s business (search and browsers, etc.) and the public line team will be merged into Tencent Kandian. Tencent Platform and Content Business Group (PCG) subsequently announced the new organizational structure adjustment after being incorporated into Sogou, and established the “Information Platform and Service Line”.
Among them, QQ browser and Sogou browser have become the basic support platforms, and search engines such as artificial intelligence and input methods have become the core business.
According to media reports, after Tencent Kandian absorbed the Sogou team, the total number of employees exceeded 4,000, making it the second largest business within PCG, second only to OVB (Online Video Business Unit).
At the same time, PCG has also become the first business group of Tencent with more than 20,000 employees, five times that of the WeChat business group. PCG is also the business group with the largest and most complex Tencent ToC product lines, including long and short videos, reading texts, QQ, browsers, application treasures, Sogou search, input methods, and information flow products.
After that, most of Sogou’s businesses and products will be shut down, and will no longer be operated as an independent brand, but will be integrated into Tencent Aspect.
According to Baidu Encyclopedia, the Tencent Kandian department involved in the merger with Sogou provides information flow content services, mainly covering QQ Kandian, QQ browser Kandian, Kandian Express, WeChat Kandian applet, Kandian video, Products such as Kandian live broadcast have a high degree of overlap with Sogou’s own business.
Interestingly, in November last year, Tencent shut down the Kandian live broadcast app. On July 18 this year, the Kandian Express app was also officially shut down. In addition, Tencent has updated QQ Kandian to Small World.
At present, Tencent has retained the entry of QQ Aspects in the dynamic list of QQ, but the small world is displayed when you click it. In terms of product form, Small World is similar to the WeChat video account, which is a new short video function of QQ.
From a personnel level, in May this year, Tencent News head Wang Shimu was transferred. It is intriguing that Tencent.com editor-in-chief He Guoshuai, deputy editor-in-chief Ma Teng and Yang Ruichun also resigned at the same time.
In addition, it was reported in June this year that Tencent’s layoffs will continue. Among Tencent’s major business groups, PCG was the hardest hit area for layoffs in the first half of the year. The overall layoff ratio may exceed 10%. In the second half of the year, layoffs will continue on the basis of the first half of the year. Among them, the proportion of layoffs in various business segments of PCG will even reach 40%. %-50%, a small number of businesses face overall abolition. Some teams from the remaining BGs are also about to perform optimizations.
Among them, Tencent News and QQ departments have continued to lay off employees on the original basis, while Tencent News has launched a new round of layoffs ranging from 30% to 50% in various business departments.
On the whole, to a certain extent, Tencent is slowly cutting off some unprofitable businesses to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and is still tilting its strategic resources towards short videos.
This article is reprinted from: https://www.leiphone.com/category/industrynews/VmeAWxhMoTJ76cM6.html
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.