亚洲聊天应用市场“三国大战”

    这个市场还有一些其他竞争对手，如韩国的Kakao和印度的Hike也都是很热门的服务，但对微信和Line还算不上严重的威胁。普恰表示：“真正的战争会发生在中国市场。腾讯凭借微信和即时通讯工具QQ已经领先了一步。但是Line已经在东南亚和印度凭借免费电话等服务产生了一定的吸引力。”

    未来这个领域的竞争还会愈发激烈。作为全球最大的电商公司，阿里巴巴（Alibaba）的年销售额超过了亚马逊（Amazon）和易趣(eBay)的总和，如今阿里巴巴也开始启动自家的即时通讯服务“来往”。另外阿里巴巴也在与北京的浏览器公司优视科技（UCWeb）一道，开发移动游戏、视频和移动搜索服务。

    为什么阿里巴巴也要进军这个领域？当然是为了抗衡其宿敌京东与腾讯的结盟。（腾讯仍在继续通过增加其它服务，为其打造的互联网平台添砖加瓦。最近，腾讯获得了中国监管机构的许可，即将开办一家民营银行。）

    这一切都表明，在亚洲，围绕聊天应用的战争才刚刚开始。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    And still there are are others: South Korea’s Kakao and India’s Hike are also popular services but are not considered significant threats to WeChat and Line. “China is where the real battles will occur,” Putcha says. “Tencent is way ahead with WeChat and instant messaging service QQ. But Line is getting traction in Southeast Asia and India by offering free calls on top of all their other services.”

    And that’s to say nothing of future competition. Alibaba, the world’s largest e-commerce company with annual sales exceeding those of Amazon and eBay combined, has started its own instant-messaging service called Laiwang. The company BABA -3.87% is also developing mobile games, videos, and a mobile search service with the Beijing-based browser company UCWeb.

    Why would Alibaba engage in such an effort? To counter Tencent’s partnership with its arch e-commerce rival JD.com, of course. (Tencent continues to stack its Internet platform with additional services. Most recently, it received permission from Chinese regulators to create a private bank.)

    Which all goes to say that the battle over chat apps in Asia has only just begun.