Recently, Kingsoft Office, the owner of the well-known computer office software WPS Office, announced that from December 20, the domestic personal version of WPS Office will officially close third-party commercial advertisements, and users can get a more refreshing and concise office experience by updating WPS to the latest version.
Officials also said that this move is a flag that WPS once set, and last year it was determined to officially shut down third-party commercial ads by the end of 2023, and now it is ushering in a promise.
The following is the original text of the official announcement:
As we all know, third-party advertising of the software of many domestic Internet companies has always been an important part of the overall revenue, and WPS Office is no exception. In fact, in the past, WPS has caused strong dissatisfaction and complaints from users due to excessive advertising promotion.
WPS's ads include multiple ad slots on the interface, irregular pop-ups, pop-ups in the lower right corner, ad links in the mini news page, ads around the news landing page, and banners, while no ads**, and the close button is hidden, and the advertising content is false and vulgar.
In particular, pop-up advertisements that appear suddenly frequently harass users and seriously affect their online experience." This is a common issue with WPS ads reported by users.
The home page of the WPS Office official website.
As early as 2019, the official also responded to this question from users, saying that WPS Personal Edition is free software, and the development of product features requires continuous resource investment.
Proper advertising is understandable, but that can't come at the expense of the product's experience. In the Internet era where user experience is paramount, how to balance advertising and user experience is a major test for all Internet companies.
In the prospectus of Kingsoft Office's application for listing in May 2019, the proportion of WPS's advertising revenue is given here, which was 44 for three consecutive years from 2016 to 201880%，39.28%，33.75%。
As of the end of 2018, Internet advertising promotion services were still the second largest main business income of Kingsoft Office.
Until recent years, WPS adjusted its business model strategy and actively reduced advertising placement, including reducing the number of advertising slots and push frequency, which was reflected in the financial report data, and the proportion of Internet advertising revenue continued to decline, from a historical high of nearly 50% to 787%（3.0.6 billion), while in 2021, this figure was 1238%（4.0.6 billion).
In stark contrast to the shrinking Internet advertising revenue in recent years, the number of individual paying users has shown a significant upward trend, which is perhaps the biggest reason why WPS announced the elimination of third-party advertising.
WPS is firmly committed to the transformation of the subscription system, and in the 2021 annual report, the domestic individual subscription revenue reached 146.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4420%, and in 2022 this figure is 205 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3991%。Behind this is the rapid growth of paid individual memberships, which have skyrocketed from 4.81 million in 2018 to 29.97 million in 2022.
All of this shows that WPS's services are being recognized by more and more users.
In 2022, WPS was deeply involved in the incident of "deleting users' local files", and the official not only denied it, but also responded to the advertising problem again, announcing that it would completely shut down ads in 2023.
In the past few years, we have been reducing ads, and there are very few ads in the PC version, and many ads are not ours, but some third parties directly pop up at the front when monitoring the WPS startup", Zhang Qingyuan, vice president of Kingsoft Office Software, responded in his personal Weibo.
The cancellation of Internet advertising is a very rare event in the industry, and the last one that caused a big repercussion was Meizu.
In 2021, Meizu announced the launch of the "30 mobile phone" plan, starting from the Meizu 18 series, Meizu will give up the Internet advertising revenue of new products, zero advertising, zero push, zero pre-installation, no ads in the system's own applications, no pre-installed third-party applications in the 18 series, no advertising push, etc.
However, just when everyone was expecting Meizu to lead the mobile phone industry to say goodbye to advertising, Meizu itself made a mess of chicken feathers, not only quietly deleted all the promotional content about the "30 mobile phone", but also had to issue an apology letter and announced the cessation of this plan, leaving only the Meizu 18 and Meizu 18 Pro two mobile phones to enjoy special treatment.
Quite dramatically, at the end of 2021, Meizu was fined 2More than 50,000 yuan.
Whether it's WPS Office or Meizu mobile phones, turning off Internet advertising is a pioneering move for the entire industry, and it's a good thing, after all, everyone has been suffering from advertising for a long time.