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Tag: Cheetah Mobile

  • Cheetah Mobile Responds to Kochava’s Misleading Statements on Advertising

    Cheetah Mobile Responds to Kochava’s Misleading Statements on Advertising

    MUMBAI: Cheetah Mobile Inc. (NYSE: CMCM) ("Cheetah Mobile" or the "Company"), a leading mobile internet company with global market coverage, today announced plans to take legal action against mobile app attribution and analytics company Kochava. As per the company, Kochava has provided false information and opinions about Cheetah Mobile’s advertising system to the media, leading to a sharp decline in the company’s stock price. The company believes that Kochava’s actions are misleading and completely without merit.

    Kochava has accused Cheetah Mobile’s apps of engaging in a fraudulent advertising practice known as “click injection.” Kochava has based this assertion on a series of tests carried out in a simulated smartphone environment, the results of which were shared with Cheetah Mobile and the media in a series of videos. However, upon analyzing the videos and other evidence, the company discovered that Kochava’s testing methods contained fundamental mistakes, leading to a number of false or misleading conclusions, including:

    1. In the evidence provided to Cheetah Mobile, click injection occurs whether Cheetah Mobile apps are installed or not. It is unrelated to Cheetah Mobile’s apps.

    On November 27, BuzzFeed News published the following statement, attributed to Grant Simmons, the head of client analytics for Kochava:

    “The explanation provided by Cheetah refers to SDKs meant for ad delivery in-app. The fraud detailed in our research and the related article does not look at in-app ad delivery from the apps in question, but instead the syndication of fraudulent signals taking place on the device when the apps are present," he said in an email.

    In the videos, Kochava first opens a Cheetah Mobile utility app while a large number of apps and SDKs unrelated to Cheetah Mobile’s apps are open, such as Appcoach and Webeye. These ad SDKs have no relationship with Cheetah Mobile’s utility apps. Kochava then uses the smartphone simulator to install a new app, which causes Appcoach or Webeye to report the installation to Kochava. But since Appcoach and Webeye are not installed inside Cheetah Mobile’s apps, this action has nothing to do with Cheetah Mobile.

    In fact, in the above simulation environment, even if you uninstall all of Cheetah Mobile’s apps, an attribution report is generated. But by deliberately opening Cheetah Mobile’s utility apps within the simulation environment, Kochava is giving the erroneous impression that the reports generated by the third-party SDKs are related to Cheetah Mobile’s apps. Therefore, the evidence presented in Kochava’s videos is inaccurate and misleading.

    2. Kochava has alleged that all of relevant advertising SDKs embedded in Cheetah Mobile’s products are owned and developed by Cheetah Mobile, but in fact, nearly 97% of Cheetah Mobile’s overseas utility revenue comes from third-party advertising SDKs. These third-party SDKs can be found on all of the world’s major advertising platforms and are being used on numerous mainstream global apps. The SDKs are unrelated to Cheetah Mobile.

    The following statement appears in the same BuzzFeed article mentioned above:

    The SDK involved in the suspect activity is actually owned and developed by Cheetah, not by third parties, according to Kochava.

    Kochava’s videos show that once a new app is installed, advertising SDKs on Cheetah Mobile apps, such as Batmobi, Duapps and Altmob, report the download data to Kochava, which then determines attribution based on this data.

    Cheetah Mobile cooperates with all of the major global advertising platforms. Every platform provides ads on Cheetah Mobile’s apps through their own SDKs embedded on Cheetah Mobile apps. The SDKs and third-party attribution platforms work together to determine attribution of app installations. Cheetah Mobile is not part of this process.

    Kochava is an app attribution company, whose business model is based on determining installation attribution from third-party SDKs. Therefore, they fully understand that attribution is unrelated to the app itself. In their videos, they are misleading the media to believe that Cheetah Mobile is engaged in fraudulent practices.

    3. The media and Kochava intentionally exaggerated the relationship between Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech to intentionally overstate Cheetah Mobile’s influence over Kika Tech.

    The article states that:

    The other app is owned by Kika Tech, a Chinese company now headquartered in Silicon Valley that received a significant investment from Cheetah in 2016.

    This statement is misleading. Kika Tech is just one of more than 80 companies that the Company has invested in. Cheetah Mobile owns less than a five percent stake in Kika Tech and has no seats on the board. Furthermore, the Company has zero operational control over Kika Tech.

    4. Kochava has severely damaged the reputation of a public company with its unfounded claims. The Company reserves the right to take legal action against Kochava.

    In the same article, Grant Simmons, head of client analytics for Kochava, is quoted as saying:

    “This is theft — no other way to say it.”

    The company finds this comment extremely hostile and outrageous.

    Cheetah Mobile is a leading global app developer with numerous global partnerships. In the third quarter 2018, 70.31% of the company’s overseas utility revenue came from Google and Facebook’s ad SDKs, while 26.06% came from other mainstream global ad platform SDKs. These SDKs are used on mainstream apps throughout the world.

    Cheetah Mobile’s success is based on long-term steady development and providing users with a better user experience. The company is dedicated to building a healthy development model. The company is also committed to complying with all relevant Google policies, GDPR, laws and regulations.

    Gaia Guan, CEO of Moca Technology, a global mobile advertising platform focused on India and developing markets, said, “Cheetah Mobile is a pioneering Chinese mobile app company overseas. They are constantly focused on improving the product experience and ad experience for users, while strictly adhering to industry regulations and standards. In our many years working with Cheetah Mobile, they have always put the user and advertisers first, while treating their partnerships fairly and transparently.”

    5. After investigating our third-party SDKs, the company has removed Batmobi and Duapps from its apps

    Cheetah Mobile has cooperated with the third-party security firm Threat Hunter to investigate the situation, particularly regarding the advertising SDKs featured in the videos that could potentially possess attribution risks, namely Batmobi and Duapps. To be cautious, the company has proactively removed them from its updated apps. Cheetah Mobile continues to investigate, and will suspend cooperation with any SDK providers that are found to be engaging in fraudulent activities.

    Kochava has a relatively small market share. In 2016, Kochava publicized its cooperation with Cheetah Mobile multiple times to raise its prestige, while seeking to expand its cooperation with the company. Cheetah Mobile ceased its collaboration with Kochava in September 2016.

    Cheetah Mobile rejects Kochava’s accusations as baseless. The company will continue to place even more value on advertisers’ rights and making sure the industry develops in a healthy way. As one of the top publishers in the world, Cheetah Mobile pledges to redouble its efforts towards monitoring and detecting potential issues within third-party ad SDKs and its own products in order to ensure maximum benefits for advertisers and users alike.

  • Cheetah Mobile wields the power of AI to transform its utility apps

    Cheetah Mobile wields the power of AI to transform its utility apps

    MUMBAI: Cheetah Mobile, a mobile internet company that provides leading apps for mobile users worldwide and connects users with personalised content on the mobile platform, has commenced the roll out of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies across most of its utility applications hoping to redefine its products further differentiating it from competitors.

    Currently, the company has over 580 million active users worldwide.  AI and big data are two major focuses for Cheetah Mobile, and the company’s mobile product lineup demonstrates this strategy. India is one of its largest markets in terms of installations and active users, and exclusive features for Indian users are coming in the imminent future.

    As Cheetah amplifies the use of AI technology in its apps, popular utility apps like CM Launcher, Clean Master, Security Master, CM Locker, and Cheetah Keyboard will become more personalised and faster. India is one of the company’s top performing countries for mobile tools and Cheetah is working towards localising these apps to provide a unique experience for Indian users. These customisations include exclusive launcher app themes for festivals such as Holi. The Keyboard app also provides highly localised language optimisation options such as “Hinglish” making it one of the most efficient keyboard apps for users in India.

    With the help of AI photo search capability, Clean Master is able to scan for repeated photos and clean up images. Similarly, CM Launcher uses deep learning to analyse usage behavior over time to recommend personalised themes to users. This helps the users identify unique themes representing their personality. The Keyboard uses AI-powered advanced predictive text, to suggest replies and save valuable time for users. Such application of neural networks and deep learning technologies would allow it to be one of the most technologically advanced keyboards out there. Cheetah Keyboard currently analyses data and “learns” about 2 billion words and phrases.

    Facial recognition technology is already being used in Cheetah Mobile’s Live.me social live broadcasting app, which produces more than 300,000 hours of user-generated live content each day. The technology has other uses as well, including the ability to recognise brand logos, support advertisement testing, generate user tags based on a variety of characteristics, and provide personalised content recommendations, thereby supporting all types of dynamic facial mapping.

    Meanwhile, Cheetah Ads unifies Cheetah Mobile’s strengths in utility apps and mobile content under a single brand with a strong focus on bringing vertical video ads to every kind of mobile moment.

    Cheetah Mobile VP Edward Sun said, “Artificial intelligence is changing the way we interact with our desired brands and will play a critical role in the future of customer engagement. We believe in the ability of AI technology to unlock the potential of the modern workforce and will offer a chance to bypass competitors and disrupt the industry landscape.”

    Realising the importance of AI, Cheetah Mobile has invested in Beijing OrionStar, an AI technology company this year. Post this investment, Cheetah Mobile holds approximately 30 per cent of equity interest in Beijing OrionStar and has a two-year warrant to subscribe to additional equity interests at the same valuation to achieve controlling position.

    Beijing OrionStar has successfully developed its own far-field voice interactive operating system. The first product with Beijing OrionStar’s far-field voice interactive operating system, Xiaoya AI Speaker, was released in June 2017. In addition, Beijing OrionStar recently won an AI competition organised by Microsoft using facial recognition technology to identify celebrity photos.

     

  • Cheetah Mobile VP Li replaces Chen to lead India ad biz

    Cheetah Mobile VP Li replaces Chen to lead India ad biz

    MUMBAI: Cheetah Mobile VP – sales and business development Johnny Li has been appointed to lead its advertising business in India.

    Li will be taking over the roles and responsibilities from Morden Chen, who will be moving on from Cheetah Mobile to pursue other interests.

    “We are confident that our comprehensive mobile marketing solutions coupled with our AI technology can help advertisers reach their target audience effectively,” Li said.

    Li, who holds an International Trade Bachelor Degree from Beijing International Studies University, has been a part of Cheetah Mobile since 2013, has devoted himself to multiple international business matters, engaging at all levels.

    With over 10 years of experience in international business development, he is the founder of Cheetah Mobile’s first multicultural business development team which led to the establishment of six offices overseas and 12 local business development teams which cover: user acquisition, strategic partnerships, content development, and third-party inventory partnerships.

    Earlier, Li held the positions of senior manager and then director of international business development at NQ Mobile Inc.

  • Digiday: Cheetah wins ‘Best Mobile Marketing Platform’ award

    MUMBAI: Cheetah Ads, a mobile advertisement platform of Cheetah Mob, has been awarded as the Best Mobile Marketing Platform of 2017 by Digiday Signal awards.

    Cheetah Mobile will be honored alongside other Digiday Awards winners in a ceremony in New York City in November, 2017.

    Cheetah Mobile GM ad sales APAC Morden Chen said: “Our innovative app has the power to transform ads into experiences that are desirable and a delightful for users and brand advertisers.

    Cheetah Ads received this award for their successful campaigns for Samsung on the occasion of Flipkart’s Big Billion Day sale, by creating 0.5 million page visits. The other campaign was for Bollywood comedy film Jolly LLB 2, to create a huge buzz on the day of its release and generate high CTR using the ad platform of Applock. AppLock ads offer a wide range of creative possibilities, providing brands with an interactive way to increases brand awareness like providing vertical video, GIF, full-screen and half-screen formats. With 400 million daily impressions worldwide (40 million US), AppLock allows brands to reach the right audience, at the right time, in the right format.

    Cheetah Ads offers diverse, global reach with over 600 million users from 200+ countries across Cheetah Mobile’s owned and operated inventory, including News Republic, Live.me, Clean Master, and CM Security.

    The Digiday Signal Awards honors the technology platforms that brings efficiency, effectiveness, and creativity to the media and marketing processes for brands, agencies and publishers. Digiday honors the best marketing and advertising technology, from publisher-centric tools to analytics dashboards for digital platforms.

  • Cheetah claims Applock surpassed 35% penetration

    MUMBAI: Libra, an Android analysis platform designed by Cheetah Mobile, has found that Security Master – Antivirus, VPN, AppLock, Booster – (previously known as CM Security Antivirus app Applock) claims to have a weekly active penetration rate of over 35 per cent among mobile internet users on Android in India at present. Applock is able to reach 200 million impressions a day making it a powerful advertising tool for advertisers that increasingly need to reach a mobile-first audience.

    Samsung, Suzuki, Tata & Colgate are already on-board with the company’s Cheetah Ads services. In particular, Samsung’s campaign has generated more than 37 million impressions for a campaign that helped it launch one of its phones. A combination of high market reach, impactful ad format, and machine learning to help optimize the campaign has resulted in purchase intent of more than 2.5x the normal mobile e-commerce rate.

    Cheetah Mobile APAC Ad sales GM Morden Chen said, “Our huge inventory and precise targeting abilities fuelled by our AI capabilities, Cheetah Ads will continue to help advertisers in India to effectively reach their target audience who are increasingly mobile-first. We see our mission in India as one to continue to educate the market about the beauty of mobile advertising and work closely with our various partners to move the industry forward.”

    Tata global beverages – media & marketing procurement deputy GM Sonia Serrao said, “We tried the Locker Ad Roadblock from Cheetah Mobile in conjunction with our print campaign, and it gave us maximum “Impact and Reach”.

    Based on a recent study by Cheetah Mobile, launched vertical video in all mobile moments earlier this year by leveraging its suite of mobile apps which are able to capture a mobile user’s entire mobile consumption journey.