This achievement signifies DingTalk’s dominance in the communication platform sector and reflects China’s accelerating digital transformation.

The platform’s president, Ye Jun, announced this milestone, emphasizing DingTalk’s commitment to enhancing workplace productivity through cutting-edge technological integration.

The recent introduction of an AI agent, powered by Alibaba Cloud’s Tongyi Qianwen, into the platform, is a testament to this commitment. This AI agent, designed to serve as a versatile workplace assistant, can perform various tasks ranging from drafting documents to facilitating business trip bookings on external platforms.

DingTalk’s customer demographics reveal a diverse clientele, with small and micro enterprises forming 58%, medium-sized businesses at 30%, and large corporations at 12%.

As of March 2023, DingTalk had already garnered over 100,000 businesses subscribing to its paid software services, highlighting its expansive reach across various business sizes and sectors.

Integrating AI into DingTalk marks a significant shift in the platform’s capabilities.

Users, both individuals and enterprises, can now customize their AI assistants to perform tasks tailored to their specific workplace needs. This level of customization allows for a more efficient and personalized user experience.

For instance, corporations can leverage AI agents for intricate tasks like recruitment and financial analysis, whereas individual users can utilize them for routine tasks.

Furthermore, DingTalk’s expansion of its corporate user base to 25 million, with 28 million daily active paid users and 120,000 paying enterprises, indicates its growing influence in the digital workspace sector.

The platform’s strategic focus on generative AI and the planned launch of a marketplace for AI agents, expected to grow to over 10 million in the next three years, positions DingTalk at the forefront of AI integration in business communications.

DingTalk also boasts a low-code platform, enabling the rapid development of custom applications for various industries. This feature has proven especially beneficial for sectors like education and large-scale event management.

For instance, schools and universities have adopted DingTalk for online assignment distribution and grading tasks. The platform has also been customized for major events like the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, streamlining communication and task management for the organizing committee and participants.

DingTalk’s recent achievements and ongoing innovations firmly establish it as a pivotal player in China’s digital landscape, setting new standards for workplace communication platforms worldwide.

Alibaba’s DingTalk user profile

Chinese technology companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu have long been technically ready for their staff to work outside the office. But, remote working to the majority workforces in China remains new and uncomfortable.

As China continues to fight the coronavirus, remote working is no longer an option but a necessity for many. Communication and collaboration platforms are essential to remote workers; Alibaba’s DingTalk, a.k.a. Dingding in the Chinese version, has seen a spike in demand in China.

It has surpassed social messaging apps in popularity on Apple’s App Store for the first time as companies tell employees to work remotely due to the novel coronavirus epidemic.

DingTalk responded quickly to release free solutions for workers staying home including contacts management, attendance, video conferencing, cloud drive, group streaming, task coordination, and etc. It even offers a beauty touch-up for those who do not have time to dress up before making a video call.

DingTalk has set up a special 24-hour team as the number of users rose to about 200 million, according to Daily Economic News. The interests over both DingTalk and WeChat Work (separate app from Tencent that integrates with consumer app WeChat) have skyrocketed as indicated by the search data from Baidu:

Enterprise version of WeChat, or WeChat Work launched in 2016, has also seen fast growth over the past two weeks. It allows up to 300 people to join video calls while DingTalk allows up to 16 people. Tencent also offers Tencent Docs for online document collaborations while Alibaba offers Yuque (technically by Ant Financial team but used by all Alibaba teams).

Huawei also promoted their teamwork platform WeLink and Kingsoft’s WPS office software suite also has some popularity in China for their collaborative online work. Both provide their services for free. WeLink is more focused on security considering the nature of Huawei’s business.

Feishu, a team collaboration software from ByteDance, is also offering SMEs the business version for free for three years.

NASDAQ listed Zoom Video Communications is benefiting from the coronavirus outbreak. And, it also wants to help Chinese businesses:

But, the dedicated domain doesn’t have a fully localized Chinese page. Even the sign-up page is in English. Nonetheless, Zoom has some level of awareness in China; some MNC and technology companies like ByteDance use Zoom.

Baidu is also offering its solution Baidu Hi; but, it doesn’t seem to be seriously promoted at the moment. DingTalk is a winner; and, WeChat Work and Feiyu both saw some traction.

Continue reading Acquire, convert, and retain customers through WeChat Ads + WeChat Work or check out Rocky’s China Digital Trends podasts via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Google Play  or Spotify.

Tencent officially launched Enterprise WeChat/Weixin this morning, positions as a tool for office communications and collaborations.

Enterprise WeChat, still under internal testing last month, currently supports iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows PCs.

Tencent developed communications software for enterprises back in 2003 called RTX, and Enterprise WeChat is being developed based on RTX and mainly for companies’ internal communications. The main features of Enterprise WeChat include:

• Enterprise contacts import and management
• Enterprise communications with phone and email integrated
• Encryptions

Enterprise WeChat is considered a competing product with Alibaba’s enterprise messaging app DingTalk which is a more mature office tool. Users of Tencent’s Enterprise Mail and WeChat Enterprise Accounts can import their contacts directly to Enterprise WeChat.

Enterprise WeChat currently supports registrations from enteprises, government agencies, and registered organizations. Tencent launched WeChat Enterprise Account in 2014 which is built on WeChat/Weixin. Enterprise WeChat is a new application/product targeting enterprises.

Read more: The Value of WeChat Official Accounts and check out Top 6 China Mobile Social Networking Apps