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Tudou launches smartphone

2014-08-19 10:32 Global Times Web Editor: Qin Dexing
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Tudou.com, a subsidiary of Chinese online video provider Youku Tudou, introduced its first smartphone late Sunday, jumping on the heated smartphone bandwagon in an attempt to boost its user-uploaded content business.

Tudou's "Ni Ke" phone was jointly developed with handset maker Shenzhen Doov Technology Co, with which it had set up strategic cooperation. The phone features functions to shoot and edit videos.

Tudou President Yang Weidong expects the smartphone to contribute to the development of the company's "We Media" program, an online video channel launched in March to encourage the sharing and creation of more unique and high- quality video content.

"We hope the device can prompt consumers to record their life and upload their videos on the channel," Yang said over the weekend during a two-day Tudou Festival held in Shanghai. The festival was organized to reward talented users who created online content which is crucial for Tudou to enhance the loyalty of its online video audience.

However, analysts said that Ni Ke is unlikely to meet Yang's expectation amid the nation's fiercely competitive smartphone battleground.

"The phone, featuring video shooting and sharing, is unlikely to appeal to most Chinese consumers because they have yet to be accustomed to sharing videos online," Wang Jun, an industry analyst with Beijing-based market research firm Analysys International, told the Global Times Monday.

Meanwhile, individuals who love recording and sharing videos with smartphones will probably prefer established handset brands with video shooting apps, said Wang.

One such individual is Li Xiaoxi, a 28-year-old Beijing resident who usually creates videos using an app called Meipai and posting them on Weibo.

"I would not buy a cell phone developed by Tudou," she told the Global Times Monday. "I think Tudou can offer a good user experience in the online video sector, but I doubt its capability as well as Doov's in the mobile phone segment."

Having initially released products targeting female consumers, Doov proved to be a brief sensation after its establishment in June 2009. But it has not performed well recently.

Doov failed to crack the top 10 list of China's smartphone market by sales volumes in the second quarter of the year, seizing less than a 2.5 percent share of the market, according to a report issued by Analysys International on August 7.

The tie-up of Doov and Tudou will not boost the latter's smartphone sales, Xu Hao, an industry analyst with another Beijing-based market research firm iRsearch, told the Global Times Monday.

Tudou is one of several Chinese Internet companies which have been tapping into the hardware industry, hoping that hardware sales could boost their online business.

Internet companies, such as Beijing Xiaomi Technology Co and online video provider letv.com, have been successful in the hardware sector thanks to their loyal userbases amassed online.

Baidu-backed iQiyi launched its smartphone with Shenzhen-based handset company Digione in April to boost its mobile video streaming operation.

However, both Xu and Wang said the smartphones from Tudou and iQiyi can hardly achieve the success of Xiaomi's phones or letv.com's smart TVs, even though they also have large online userbases.

"Tudou's and iQiyi's phones could have received good market reception if they had promoted their products [at the same time as] when Xiaomi and letv.com were encouraging their online users to become fans of their hardware via hungry marketing," said Wang. "Now it is too late."

Tudou's smartphone is set to ship in October via Doov's off-line sales network, according to media reports. The online retailer will reportedly be either China's largest e-commerce giant Alibaba or the country's second-largest online retailer JD.com Inc.

Neither Doov nor Youku Tudou could be reached for comment by press time.

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