Baidu Maps recently got caught up in a dispute with its arch rival AutoNavi. The two companies are employing different strategies to conquer the mobile mapping industry in China. According to one report, users prefer Baidu Maps. But analysts remain polarized about which one will end up the winner. 

Graphics: GT

Baidu Inc's mapping unit recently initiated a nationwide activity to improve its positioning technology through user feedback, causing a spat with rival AutoNavi Holdings.

The activity, which runs until May 14, asks participants to test and compare the mapping services offered by Baidu and AutoNavi, which is backed by Alibaba Group Holding.

To encourage drivers to join in, Baidu Maps pledged an award of up to 50 yuan ($7.70) for valuable feedback. The activity has been perceived as an open challenge to AutoNavi, a forerunner in developing navigation and positioning technology in China.

On April 18, AutoNavi responded to the provocation on its microblog account by criticizing Baidu for putting drivers' safety at risk by encouraging them to test its mapping services and record the results while behind the wheel.

"Baidu is inducing users to do a job that should be done by professionals," AutoNavi said in its post.

Later on the same day, Baidu's map division responded, saying that it placed great importance on testers' safety.  "We d0 not agree with AutoNavi's claims that our users are unprofessional," Baidu Maps said on its Weibo account.

It added that only authentic user experiences, rather than test reports bought from "so-called professionals," can help Baidu truly improve its mapping services.

It was not the first time - and won't likely be the last - that the two companies got into a public spat, analysts said, as Baidu and Alibaba are battling each other in the field of mobile mapping, which is key for creating some promising online-to-offline (O2O) services.

At each other's throat

The competition between Baidu and AutoNavi dates back to August 28, 2013, when the two companies announced they would make their navigation services available for free. Baidu sweetened its deal by offering refunds to users who had previously paid for its service.

AutoNavi had intended to make its announcement on August 29, 2013, but had to release the news a day early after Baidu got the drop on it, media reports said at the time.

The stock price of AutoNavi, which Beijing-based market consultancy Analysys International reported led China's mobile mapping market in the second quarter of 2013, plummeted 20 percent in the morning trading on August 29, 2013.

In November 2015, AutoNavi claimed it had received many complaints from users saying that Baidu's search engine hindered them from downloading AutoNavi's mobile app.

AutoNavi had more than 500 million users as of January 2016, according to a statement on its Weibo account in February.

Baidu said in a press release sent to the Global Times on April 19 that its mapping service already had 500 million users.

Another Internet giant, Tencent Holdings, is also trying to break into China's mobile mapping industry. After AutoNavi introduced a feature in early 2015 that gave users timely notifications about their traffic violations, Tencent announced in September 2015 that it would offer the same service, with the added feature of allowing users to pay their traffic fines via its mobile app.

Taking different roads

As competition over mobile mapping heats up, Baidu has responded by turning its map app into something like an O2O service bazaar.

Along with basic functions such as positioning services and route-planning, Baidu Maps users can hail rides with Uber, locate nearby restaurants, order food and buy movie tickets through the app.

Baidu will integrate its search and maps services with transaction services to take ground on the O2O battlefield, Baidu Chairman and CEO Li Yanhong vowed last October.

Pairing maps with transaction services abroad is now one of Baidu's major goals. The company intends to cover more than 150 countries and regions by the end of 2016.

Baidu also plans to partner with online travel agencies and offline merchants and restaurants around the world to offer hotel reservations and coupon information, a company press release said.

The strategy is a bid to meet the growing needs of Chinese travelers when they go abroad, said Zhang Xu, an industry analyst with Analysys International.

Chinese travelers made 120 million visits overseas in 2015, up 12 percent, according to data from the China National Tourism Administration.

By contrast, AutoNavi has pinned its hopes on its LBS+ strategy, an open platform for location-based services.

As a company that has been engaged in the LBS sector for more than 12 years, AutoNavi has set a goal to provide better services for O2O service developers with LBS+, Wei Kaiming, head of the LBS+, was quoted in an AutoNavi Weibo post in June 2015.

Yu Yongfu, who was appointed by Alibaba as AutoNavi's president in March 2015, has also made several major business shifts, putting user-facing O2O services aside to focus on business-facing solutions, media reports said.

Which is better?

Xu Hui, a 29-year-old Beijing resident, has both Baidu Maps and AutoNavi installed on her smartphone.  "I think they complement each other," she told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"When I need to find where I am, I put more trust in AutoNavi. But when I want to order food from nearby restaurants or call a taxi, I turn to Baidu's more convenient mapping platform."

However, a report issued by Analysys International in March found that Baidu Maps was the more popular choice.

Based on a monitor of 120 million Chinese users on the mobile front, the report said that Baidu Maps is the most frequently used, accounting for 64.4 percent of the market in terms of the length of use, followed by AutoNavi with 23.3 percent.

Although AutoNavi has created a open platform to attract third-party O2O services, "it has yet to change the thinking of people who only regard AutoNavi as a traditional mapping app that has solid demands when users cannot find their way and are really looking for help," Zhang told the Global Times on Monday.

Analysts believe competition will only grow fiercer in China's mature mobile mapping industry.

The industry's penetration rate reached 88.7 percent in 2015, a report of Guangzhou-based market consultancy iiMedia Research showed in February.

Still, it's hard for analysts to decide which one is better.

Zhang believes that Baidu Maps will continue to be the app that people use most often as it beefs up its connections with O2O services and sharpens its positioning and location finding functions.

However, Li Yi, a Shanghai-based independent Internet expert, is optimistic about AutoNavi's prospects.

"What users really look for in mapping services is precise positioning, which AutoNavi is good at," Li told the Global Times Monday. "Baidu Maps focuses too much on monetizing users via O2O services or by displaying banner advertisements."