China Fund News reporter Zhao Gang
On December 20, Kingsoft Office announced that the domestic personal version of WPS Office will officially close third-party commercial advertisements, and said that it will uphold the company mission of "simple creation, easy expression, and value connection" to provide users with high-quality product and service experience.
Beijing Kingsoft Office Software Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Kingsoft Office) is mainly engaged in the design, development, sales and promotion of WPS Office office software products and services. As of the close of trading on December 20, the share price of Jinshan Office fell 3.71% to 313.11 yuan, and the latest market value was 144.6 billion yuan.
WPS said it has been reducing advertising in recent years, and last year made up its mind to officially shut down third-party commercial ads by the end of 2023. It can be seen from the financial report data that Kingsoft Office's advertising revenue has been gradually shrinking since 2019, while R&D expenses have continued to rise.
According to the 2019 annual report, Kingsoft Office's Internet advertising and promotion business revenue was 404 million yuan, compared with 349 million yuan in 2020, a year-on-year decrease of 13.61%. In 2021, the total revenue of Internet advertising promotion and other businesses was RMB406 million, which decreased by 24.45% to RMB306 million in 2022.
Kingsoft Office has mentioned in its 2021 annual report: "The company continues to maintain a strategic adjustment trend, adheres to the principle of optimizing user experience, and continues to actively reduce the number of advertising spaces and push frequency. ”
By the third quarter of this year, Kingsoft Office's Internet advertising and promotion services and other business revenue was 67.82 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.38%, while the domestic personal office service subscription business achieved a revenue of 649.72 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.64%.
Source: Kingsoft Office's third quarter report of 2023
In the first half of this year, WPS upgraded the membership system, and the original WPS members, rice husk members and super members were integrated into WPS super members, which made the overall customer unit price of WPS increase. At the third quarter performance briefing, Kingsoft Office said: "WPS membership income has returned to the normal rhythm, breaking the ceiling of the original membership system. ”
While advertising revenue is declining, Kingsoft Office is also increasing R&D investment. From 2020 to 2022, the R&D expenses of Kingsoft Office will be 711 million yuan, 1.082 billion yuan and 1.331 billion yuan respectively, with a significant increase year by year. According to the third quarter report of this year, Kingsoft Office invested 1.076 billion yuan in research and development in the first three quarters, accounting for 32.9% of total revenue.
On November 16, Kingsoft Office announced that WPS AI has opened public beta and is open to all users. According to Zhang Qingyuan, CEO of Kingsoft Office, "Kingsoft Office positions WPS AI as the application of large language models, anchoring the development of AIGC (content creation), Copilot (intelligent assistant), and Insight (knowledge insight)." ”
At present, WPS AI public beta testing capabilities include text AI, table writing formulas, one-click generation of PPT, and PDF chat.
Source: WPS official community
Editor: Xiao Mo
Review: Xu Wen