AI large models accelerate the implementation of digital business, Weimob looks for new growth in the SaaS market

AI large model accelerates the implementation of digital business, Weimob looks for new growth in the SaaS market

China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Lu Xiao reporting from Beijing

AI large models are very popular now, but their durability depends on their actual effects in industry applications. But in this matter, relying solely on large models is not enough.

On May 24, Weimob officially released WAI, an AI application product based on large models. According to a reporter from China Times, this product has been tested internally by merchants before. Weimob Chief Operating Officer Yin Shiming also said in his speech that day that Weimob will not do the underlying algorithm. Weimob is a business company and a SaaS company. "Our core is to let it set off a revolution in content production."

The key for SaaS companies in this new revolution is to use large-scale models to truly and effectively apply the industry data they have to improve merchant efficiency. For Weimob, integrating large AI models also directly affects whether it can successfully find new performance and stock price growth points. Weimob's closing price on the Hong Kong stock market on May 26 was HK$3.76, down 2.84%, and its total market value exceeded HK$10.5 billion.

When SaaS adds AI

Quickly generate startup pages, create product live broadcast scripts, and generate "grass planting" copywriting... "China Times" reporters learned from Weimob that currently WAI has been officially launched including "word production, SMS templates, product descriptions" There are many practical application scenarios including grass planting notes, live broadcast scripts, public account tweets, short video product copywriting, etc. For some of these high-frequency application scenarios, feedback from previous test merchants has reached the level of daily use.

These scenarios all point to one goal, making it easier for merchants to open stores. Yin Shiming said that day that Weimeng is not a traffic company. It is not a mall like JD.com, but provides SaaS tools for merchants to support them in opening stores on WeChat mini programs, video accounts, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, Alipay and other platforms Open a store and help it manage data.

According to reports, Weimob’s R&D team has begun researching Vincentian graph models in June last year, and began developing large-scale model applications combined with SaaS at the beginning of this year. However, Yin Shiming also said that day that in terms of building online stores, WAI is still a laboratory version and cannot be perfectly generated with one click. "We also loudly advocate that large model manufacturers can not only make the large model itself, but also develop it. In this way, It will soon change the construction process of our e-commerce and retail."

It is worth mentioning that Weimob, which has mastered the data on this side of the industry, does not just cooperate with a large model manufacturer.

Qiu Haoping, senior technical director of Weimob Group’s R&D Center, said in an interview that day that we hope to learn from the strengths of others when choosing models. “We have been communicating with several large model manufacturers and are running together with them. .Theoretically, we would rather have everyone participate in a relay race, handing the baton to us after completing their section. Now we may hold each other's hands while passing the baton, and move forward together. ”

Qiu Haoping believes that compared with foreign OpenAI, the current domestic large-scale model is still in its infancy. "How to make AI products specific to business scenarios and marketing scenarios is still at a preliminary stage." He also said that now The QPS (query rate per second) that large model manufacturers can open to Weimob is still relatively low, so they can only do internal testing first. We expect them to improve the underlying framework, including service scheduling capabilities, model computing power scheduling capabilities, etc. Make an upgrade.

However, although WAI and the large AI model behind it are still being iterated, Weimob’s expectations for it are not small.

Yin Shiming believes that WAI will definitely be a revenue segment in the future. Its efficiency improvement is visible to the naked eye, and it has costs. However, it is difficult to estimate what size it will become because we have not yet officially produced it. "Let's get it started first. We are working non-stop now."

Looking for new growth

Behind the development of AI, Weimeng urgently needs to transform its SaaS application from an efficiency tool for merchants to open a store into a must-have tool.

Weimob also needs to use AI to find new growth directions.

On March 30, Weimob Group announced its 2022 performance report. The financial report shows that Weimob’s total revenue last year was 1.839 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.5%; its adjusted gross profit dropped 26.2% year-on-year to 1.12 billion yuan. Weimob also expects to reach breakeven in 2023.

Compared with the previous fiscal year, Weimob’s business revenue increased by 90% to 1.188 billion yuan, accounting for approximately 45% of the current total revenue. The number of paying merchants increased by 5% year-on-year to approximately 103,000, and the average revenue per user increased by 57.7% year-on-year to approximately 11,500 yuan.

What suffered the greater impact last year was Weimob’s merchant solutions business that provides merchants with precise delivery, data analysis and other services.

In fiscal year 2022, this business revenue was 547 million yuan, a decrease of nearly 30% year-on-year. The company currently serves about 53,800 paying merchants, and its average revenue per user has dropped by 24.5% to about 10,000 yuan. For comparison, the revenue of this business in fiscal year 2021 was 780 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 47.5%. In the current period, it provided services to nearly 58,000 paying merchants, and the average expenditure per advertiser reached about 18,900.

Internet analyst Ding Daoshi told a reporter from China Times that there are many reasons for the weak development of SaaS vendors such as Weimob and Youzan in the past two years. On the one hand, their basic base is the vast number of small and medium-sized enterprises, but due to the epidemic, Due to multiple factors such as the economic downturn, many small and medium-sized enterprises have reduced their budgets, and the pressure has naturally been transmitted to service providers such as Weimob and Youzan. In addition, when their performance was good before the epidemic, these two SaaS vendors were involved in many non-main businesses, which also brought some hidden dangers to subsequent losses.

Zhuang Shuai, the founder of Bailian Information, believes that China’s Internet environment and merchant strength are more suitable for adopting the platform e-commerce model. He told a reporter from China Times that SaaS is first of all a decentralized e-commerce tool. It has no traffic advantage and no organizational and operational capabilities, so it cannot compete with e-commerce platforms in terms of profit model and operation management.

However, one piece of good news is that as the economy gradually recovers, Weimob announced that in the first quarter of this year, its SaaS (including Haiding) orders increased by approximately 20% year-on-year; advertising demand recovered strongly, with gross revenue of 3.13 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 58% %.

Regarding the combination of large models and SaaS, Ding Daoshi told reporters that in the short term, the capabilities of large models are not very strong, the accuracy is not high, and they do not help much in improving corporate performance, but in the long term, large models will The combination of models and e-commerce SaaS services can predict prospects from multiple industry fields. He predicts that the performance of SaaS vendors will achieve positive growth in 2023, and the worst period is over. ”

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