AllChinaTech News
Speaking at the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) in Beijing on Thursday, Yu Yongfu, president of Alibaba’s mobile business group and the Alimama Ad exchange, said Amap will help China reduce traffic congestion in 30 major cities.
He said people are giving more attention to Auto Mobile rather than Phone Mobile today, because the car is increasingly becoming central in our lives.
Amap is already engaged in helping Chinese municipal governments smooth traffic issues in major cities by using Amap’s big data. Yu said Amap helped its Beijing users cumulatively save 680,000 hours of road travel time daily by using its smart navigation system last year.
Baidu Map and Amap are in direct competition with each other for this market in China. Yu said the company has been concentrating on developing its product and has delivered fruitful results, with Amap’s daily active phone user numbers growing 189% last year while Baidu Map’s grew 40% in the same period. Yu didn’t give figures for total user numbers.
Yu also said that Amap is working with auto manufactures to provide smart navigation solutions for drivers.
The auto, internet and digital map industries are integrated closely in the internet age. Yu said they will keep improving their products in a down-to-earth manner to provide better service for smart car users in the future.
AllChinaTech has a media partnership with GMIC. AllChinaTech is a startup media platform dedicated to providing timely news and analysis on the Chinese tech industry in English.
(Photo credit: Baidu)