UC blasts Analysys mobile browser report for fraud: will not stop until it's withdrawn

News Topic: UC Browser
"UC will not rest until this matter is made clear!\" On the afternoon of April 13, in a conference room on the 16th floor of Via Building at UC Technology, the company's vice president Wei Dong spoke vehemently. ――What really provoked UC staff this time was not any competitor but the third-party data consulting firm Analysys International. UC Technology Vice President Wei Dong (TechWeb image)
\ On April 10, Tencent held a new version product experience meeting for the Android mobile QQ Browser in Beijing. Many media outlets were invited to attend, and analysts from Analysys International were also invited to release a "2012 China Mobile Browser Market Annual Comprehensive Report."
\ What triggered UC's dissatisfaction was this survey report released by Analysys International's think tank, Analysys Insight. The report stated, "As of the fourth quarter of 2011, in terms of brand share in the mobile browser market, mobile QQ Browser, UC, and native mobile browsers accounted for 39.9%, 39.0%, and 11.4% respectively, ranking first, second, and third in China's third-party mobile browser active user market share in Q4 2011."
\ In addition, the report included a chart titled "Q1 2010–Q4 2011 Growth Trend of Active Users for China's Third-Party Mobile Browsers," marking the growth curves for several products including QQ Browser, UC, Opera, and 3G Portal-GO Browser. Analysys Insight Report shows QQ mobile browser market active users surpass UC (photo from Analysys Insight)
\ After debuting at Tencent's meeting, this report started appearing on the Analysys Insight official website for open download. When Wei Dong got hold of the report, he nearly slammed the table. Compared with the indignation caused last September over a similar mobile browser report by Analysys Insight, this time Wei Dong felt "I can no longer tolerate this because this report is false."
\ According to Wei Dong, this "false report" from Analysys Insight has major flaws in several areas:
\ First, the concept of "active users" is unclear. Wei Dong said, in the report, whether this "active users" refers to daily active users, monthly active users, or quarterly active users is not clearly defined, making it unconvincing.
\ Second, the sources of enterprise data are questionable.Wei Dong stated that, up to now, UC has only publicly released official data twice: one time was 'UC Browser had 167 million monthly active users in October 2011,' and the other was 'monthly active users exceeded 200 million at the beginning of this year.' Where did the 'active user data' listed in the report from early 2010 to the end of 2011 come from?
Thirdly, the data in the reports are contradictory. Wei Dong said that in September last year, Analysys released a '2011 China Mobile Browser Market User Survey Report,' which showed that in terms of brand share, in the first half of 2011, QQ Mobile Browser surpassed UC by 1.1 percentage points, with the former at 37.6% and the latter at 36.5%; however, the growth curve in this report shows that in Q3 2011, there was still a large gap between the two, and it was not until Q4 that QQ Mobile Browser surpassed UC. Wei Dong believes that the data from reports from the same company, Analysys, are severely contradictory.
Based on this, Wei Dong believes that unless it was the personal behavior of employees under lax internal review at Analysys, it is hard not to speculate whether Analysys was 'bribed to falsify data and mislead the public.'
In response, TechWeb checked data from multiple sources and found that whether it was data on mobile browsers released by companies like Baidu and Taobao, or market reports from other third-party research institutions, they all had direct or indirect logical inconsistencies with the above-mentioned Analysys report.
Data from Baidu Wireless shows that the PV share of UC Mobile Browser increased from 27.9% in Q3 2011 to 33.2% in Q4 2011, while QQ Mobile Browser decreased from 17.3% in Q3 2011 to 14.8% in Q4, with the gap between the two gradually widening. Public data on domestic mobile browsers from Baidu Wireless (image from Baidu Wireless)
Another third-party research agency, iiMedia Research, recently released the '2012 Q1 China Mobile Browser Market Quarterly Monitoring Report,' showing that in the first quarter of 2012, UC Mobile Browser ranked first with a market share of 49.5%, while QQ Mobile Browser had a market share of 29.7%. Public data on domestic mobile browsers from iiMedia Research (image from iiMedia Research)
Additionally, the 'Taobao Wireless E-commerce Data Report' shows that in terms of mobile Taobao traffic, UC Browser accounts for 73.4%, while QQ Mobile Browser accounts for 21.8%;According to the latest statistics from the well-known domestic free traffic statistics website Stat Counter, UC's market share is close to 60%, while QQ Mobile Browser is not in the top 9.
As for who is telling the truth with these data, it is currently impossible to determine. 'This matter is unclear, UC and Analysys are not through,' Wei Dong emphasized at the end, 'We will go to any lengths to reach a result. We don't require the other party to apologize, just retract the report.'
Article by TechWeb