Sogou
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Type of site
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Public |
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| Traded as | NYSE: SOGO |
| Founded | 9 August 2010 |
| Headquarters | Beijing, China |
| Owner | Tencent (42%), Sohu (36%) |
| Industry | Internet |
| Revenue | $660 million (2016) |
| Employees | 2,100 |
| Website | sogou.com, ir.sogou.com, |
Sogou, Inc. is a public company, founded on 9 August 2010 by Wang Xiaochuan. It is the owner and developer of Sogou (Chinese: 搜狗; pinyin: Sōugǒu; literally: "Search-dog") search engine, Sogou Input and Sogou browser. According to iResearch statistics, Sogou accounted for 16.7% of mobile market share in China with 483 active visitors. It is headquartered in Beijing, China. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University.
Sogou listed on the New York Stock Exchange on November 9, 2017, under the ticker “SOGO”[1]. The night before the IPO, Tencent owned 44% of the Sogou while Sohu owned 38%. In the quarter prior to the IPO, Sogou reported 55% year over year revenue growth of 55% and 22% quarter over quarter growth.
Contents
Products[edit]
| Available in | Chinese |
|---|---|
| Owner | Public Company |
| Website | sogou |
| Alexa rank |  123 (July 2016[update])[2] |
| Commercial | yes |
| Users | 560 million |
| Launched | 3 August 2004 |
| Current status | Active |
Search engine and web applications[edit]
Sogou search engine (Sogou.com) was launched on 3 August 2004. Sogou's web application products are designed to classify online information, such as music, picture, video clip, news, map and vertical information. As of 2017, it has an index of 10 billion pages.
As of 2017, over 90% of the company's revenues are from search advertising.
In October 2017, Sogou began testing a general search engine within WeChat, which would allow all 902 million daily active users to access the internet within the app. Since 2013, Sogou has only been able to search and index contents of WeChat official accounts.
Sogou Input Method[edit]
Initially released in 2006, Sogou Pinyin is the most popular Chinese input software in China. It makes use of its search engine techniques which are the analysis and categorization of the most popular words or phrases on the Internet. In 2007, Sogou won a patent infringement case against Google for copying their IME. As of October 2017, the Sogou Input Method app is #1 in China with a 41.2% market share. Baidu is second with a 25.7% market share. IME data gives companies large amounts of keystroke history to improve search result accuracy.
Sogou Browser[edit]
Launched in December 2008, Sogou browser adopts a "dual-core" (Google Chrome's WebKit and Internet Explorer's Trident layout engines) techniques and it connects to the cloud to recognize malicious websites and software. Several websites describe Sogou Explorer as malicious adware and recommend users not to install it, since user settings are changed and URLs are sent to servers in China, without user consent, violating user privacy. The software is reported as difficult to remove.
Sogou Voice Recognition Technology[edit]
Sogou has been developing voice recognition technology since 2011. At the World Internet Conference in November 2016, CEO Wang Xiaochuan demonstrated a voice translation with both Chinese and English translation with up to 95% accuracy. There has been a rush to partner with manufacturers in connecting devices to the internet between competitors like Baidu. Google-backed AI startup Mobvoi had a deal fall through with Xiaomi's for their MiTV launch in March 2017. Xiaomi company representatives pointed to Sogou getting the business using their ASR solution with accuracy up to 97%.
Sogou Lip Recognition Technology[edit]
On 15 December 2017, Sogou debuted a lip reading program that can operate at up to 90% accuracy, beating out a similar program by Google.
Partnership with Microsoft Bing[edit]
In May 2016, Sogou partnered with Microsoft to use Bing to search for English results, then get the result translated back into Chinese.
Other Investments[edit]
Along with Tencent, Sogou participated in round C and D in Zhihu.com. According to Sogou's IPO prospectus, their investment in Round C in 2015 was 4.8% of Zhihu. In 2014, Sogou launched Zhihu search.
In 2016, Sogou donated $30 million to Tsinghua University in a joint partnership to build a Artificial Intelligence Institute. It currently has a Sogou Search Engine Technology Joint Laboratory at Tsinghua University.
Debut on NYSE[edit]
On November 9, 2017, Sogou debuted on the New York Stock Exchange[3], and subsequently raised $585 million offering in a bid to accelerate the use of Artificial intelligence in its business.[4] According to the company, proceeds from the IPO will be used for research and development, sales and marketing efforts, and general corporate purposes.[5]
References[edit]
- ^ "Chinese search engine Sogou up 4% following IPO", TechCrunch, 9 November 2017
- ^ "Sogou.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2016-07-15.
- ^ "IPO of Tencent-backed Sogou part of China tech's offshore M&A push", Financial Times, 9 November 2017
- ^ "With eye on AI, Sougou debuts on New York Stock Exchange", China Daily, 10 November 2017
- ^ "Tencent- and Sohu-backed Chinese search-engine Sogou debuts on NYSE", Xinhuanet News, 10 November 2017
External links[edit]
- Sogou – Official website (in Chinese)
