騰訊聯手四維圖新入股德國地圖企業
Chinese technology group Tencent has bought a stake in a German-owned mapping company in an attempt to win market share from Baidu and Alibaba, as the three gear up to compete for driverless cars’ navigation systems.
中國科技企業騰訊(Tencent)收購了德國一家地圖繪製企業的部分股權，此舉意在從百度(Baidu)和阿里巴巴(Alibaba)那裏搶奪市場份額——這三家企業正在無人駕駛汽車導航系統方面展開角逐。
Tencent, along with Chinese mapping provider NavInfo and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, will jointly buy a 10 per cent stake in Here at a price of up to EURO241m, the companies announced on Tuesday. The purchase would reduce the shareholdings of Here’s owners, the German carmakers Audi, BMW and Daimler.
相關公司週二宣佈，騰訊將聯合中國地圖供應商四維圖新(NavInfo)和新加坡主權財富基金——政府投資公司(GIC)，以2.41億歐元的價格收購Here 10%的股權。這次收購將降低Here現有股東——德國車企奧迪(Audi)、寶馬(BMW)和戴姆勒(Daimler)的持股比例。
Providing maps for autonomous cars requires a technological leap. Maps designed to be read by people have a 10 metre accuracy level but autonomous cars will need to know where they are to the nearest centimetre.
爲自動駕駛汽車提供地圖需要一個技術飛躍。爲人們閱讀而設計的地圖的精度爲10米級別，但自動駕車汽車需要以釐米精度瞭解自己的位置。
“With the benefit of Here’s technology, we’re mainly planning to advance our in-car navigation systems and mapping services for driverless cars,” said a spokesperson for NavInfo, which provides map data for Tencent.
“在Here技術的幫助下，我們主要計劃推進面向無人駕駛汽車的車載導航系統和地圖服務，”爲騰訊提供地圖數據的四維圖新(NavInfo)的發言人表示。
“This collaboration . . . facilitates Tencent’s exploration of future technologies including autonomous driving and artificial intelligence,” said Julian Ma, a vice-president of Tencent.
“這一合作……爲騰訊探索未來技術——包括自動駕駛和人工智能——創造了條件，”騰訊副總裁馬喆人(Julian Ma)表示。
Tencent faces an uphill battle for smartphone map users in a sector dominated by Baidu and Alibaba’s recent entrant Amap, which it acquired two years ago from AutoNavi. Figures from iResearch, the consultancy, show that Baidu and Alibaba’s maps have around 200m monthly users each, whereas Tencent’s standalone map application has only 8m.
在這個由百度和新對手高德地圖（Amap，阿里巴巴兩年前從高德軟件(AutoNavi)手中收購）主導的領域，騰訊在爭奪智能手機地圖用戶上面臨着一場硬仗。諮詢公司艾瑞諮詢(iResearch)的數據顯示，百度和阿里巴巴的地圖各自擁有2億左右的月活躍用戶，而騰訊獨立的地圖應用僅有800萬月活躍用戶。
However, this figure would rise dramatically if it included the 850m users of the company’s messaging app WeChat who might use the app’s built-in mapping services — for instance, to share their location with friends.
然而，如果把騰訊旗下的即時通訊應用微信（可能使用該應用內置的地圖服務）的8.5億用戶包括在內——比如與朋友分享自己的位置——該數據將大幅上升。
