(By Guancha Observer Network / Zhang Zhifeng)
"For Chinese enterprises going overseas to seek larger markets, the lack of confidence is the scariest thing," said Zhang Qingyuan, CEO of Kingsoft Office, during an interview event on April 14. In the process of globalization, Chinese companies can also find new opportunities from the global economic changes brought about by the tariff war.
From the perspective of Kingsoft Office, its competitive landscape with Microsoft Office, its largest competitor, has already formed a fixed pattern in multiple global markets. "The current adjustment of the global market is becoming a key opportunity to break the competitive balance," Zhang Qingyuan stated. Another opportunity lies in the synergistic effect brought by "Chinese enterprises going out together," which significantly enhances the overall brand influence and acceptance of Chinese enterprises in overseas markets. This benefit is not only reflected in hardware products but also holds great significance for software suppliers like Kingsoft Office.
Accelerating the replacement of domestic software and growth of B-end business
Financial data shows that in 2024, Kingsoft Office's revenue was 5.121 billion yuan, growing by 12.40%. Of this, 95.7% came from domestic sources, with only 218 million yuan from overseas revenue.
Like many other companies that have achieved high market share domestically, Kingsoft Office also expects to accelerate its exploration of overseas markets and views it as its core strategy at this stage.
In particular, the rapid expansion of the overseas market shares of Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo, and other domestic mobile phones and notebook terminals has also boosted the popularity of WPS, the office software, providing strong competitive conditions for corporate overseas expansion. "The most important thing for office software is trust and habit. When Chinese brands are everywhere on the streets and alleys, holding Chinese phones and using Chinese computers, local users' acceptance of Chinese office software will naturally increase."
"Overseas markets will definitely be a very large incremental market for us," Zhang Qingyuan introduced. Leveraging the strong position of Chinese phone manufacturers overseas, the WPS mobile version has accumulated approximately 200 million monthly active devices in Southeast Asian countries along the "Belt and Road" and Europe. "What is gratifying is that the success of the mobile version is gradually driving the growth of PC users."
Regarding the U.S. market, Zhang Qingyuan stated, "Office software is more sensitive than other consumer goods. Under various restrictions, the U.S. market is no longer a focus for Kingsoft Office. On the contrary, since 2018, Kingsoft Office has been dedicated to domestic office software replacement."
This is most evident in the business data of WPS 365, a one-stop AI office platform that integrates document, collaboration, and AI capabilities. It continuously strengthens its advantages among central state-owned enterprises and achieved business revenue of 437 million yuan in 2024, increasing by 149.33% year-over-year.
According to official website data, last year, WPS 365 deepened its layout in industries such as finance, manufacturing, consumption, and internet, adding benchmark customers including China Resources Group, COFCO Group, China Railway Engineering Corporation, China National Pharmaceutical Group, China Green Development Investment Corporation, Jiangxi Bank, New Oriental, Taikang Insurance, Haier, and others, with over a million enterprise users choosing WPS 365 for their operations.
Therefore, with the unfolding of the Sino-U.S. tariff博弈, the new round of domestication of office software replacement has further accelerated, which may present another opportunity for Kingsoft Office. Zhang Qingyuan stated that Kingsoft Office plans to consolidate its core B-end customers among central state-owned enterprises while accelerating the capture of B-end market share from private enterprises.
Actively embracing AI and increasing R&D investment
In addition to its overseas strategies, AI transformation is another era opportunity in Zhang Qingyuan's eyes. "I have worked at Kingsoft Office for 25 years, experiencing multiple era transformations from PCs to mobile internet, but the disruptive impact of AI on all industries far exceeds any era before. Its temptation in improving efficiency is irresistible for all humanity."
Take the classic "80-20 rule" (80% of users only use 20% of the features) in the software industry as an example; this does not mean users do not need the remaining 80% of features but rather they don't know or don't know how to use them. The emergence of AI Agents (intelligent agents) has solved this problem effortlessly.
"For example, complex functions like 'data pivot tables,' in the future, users only need to say, 'I want to analyze sales data in multiple dimensions,' and the Agent can automatically generate the results and adjust them into your desired format," Zhang Qingyuan believes that 2025 is the year of AI application, and by next year, AI Agents will become very mature.
At the same time, facing the headache-inducing "AI hallucinations" and consumers' concerns about "data security," Kingsoft Office has already prepared countermeasures, i.e., deepening the value of private domain knowledge.
"The smarter the AI large model, the more hallucinations it has, the less controllable it becomes," Zhang Qingyuan explained. To address AI hallucinations and AI pollution issues, one of Kingsoft Office's main directions is AIGC (AI-generated content) based on private domain knowledge.
From the company's perspective, whether it is content uploaded via its own account or content created independently, these are relatively more reliable contents after screening. WPS private cloud can be considered as the user's private domain knowledge base. In the future, when you want to generate similar content or view related content, you can let AI recreate based on these private domain knowledge, greatly improving efficiency while ensuring authenticity.
It is worth mentioning that Zhang Qingyuan frankly stated that Kingsoft Office itself does not participate in the research and development of AI large models. "The changes in AI large models are very fast, not all companies can afford the cost of self-developing large models, especially given the open-source availability of excellent native models like Deep Seek."
However, this does not mean that Kingsoft Office does not attach importance to R&D investment. On the contrary, the company spent 1.696 billion yuan on R&D last year, accounting for approximately 33% of revenue, with a year-on-year increase of 15.16% in R&D expenses; the proportion of R&D personnel increased to 67%, growing by 12.50% year-over-year.
"The sum of the R&D expense ratio and the proportion of R&D personnel is exactly 100%," Zhang Qingyuan joked, which is quite rare among all A-share listed companies.
Even in the face of questions from the capital market about high investments, Zhang Qingyuan remains resolute: "In the coming years, we will still increase our investments, even reducing profit margins, to unswervingly invest in AI, collaboration, and internationalization as our three strategic focuses."
Facing future competition in the office software market, Zhang Qingyuan revealed, "Kingsoft Office's goal is to stand on 'long-termism' rather than how much short-term profit or high market capitalization. We have been established for 17 years now and hope to live for another 30 years, remaining a good company 30 years later."
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7493807991318249984/
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