Dianping.com's Mobile Client Experiences Tenfold Growth in Unique Users, Putting It on the Road to Becoming 2012's Must-Have App

SHANGHAI, Jan. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Dianping.com recently won the Cross-Platform Application Award in a contest held last year by Samsung, whose selection committee for the award sought to identify and reward excellence in applications on the Android, bada and Smart TV platforms. Dianping.com's Mobile Client was recognized for its outstanding performance on the Android and bada platforms. During 2011, Dianping.com's Mobile Client received more than ten highly-regarded awards in the mobile category, including the "App Store List" and "Baidu's Top 10 Most-Searched Portable Applications 2011".

China's most popular must-have lifestyle app

In the past decade, China's consumer lifestyle market has experienced rapid development, yet the potential for further growth remains huge, as local consumers continue to demonstrate strong demand and increase their purchasing power. With a footprint encompassing more than 2,300 cities across China, Dianping.com had more than 1.5 million member merchants and 42 million active users, according to data for the fourth quarter of 2011. Among them, unique users of the Mobile Client grew ten times to more than 18 million, including students, white collar workers and business executives. "Many people in my circle have discovered great places to go to and enjoy themselves by checking Dianping.com on their phones. In particular, as the app knows their location, they can get information about merchants nearby and check out user reviews before making a decision. This is a must-have application, especially when on a business trip or in an unfamiliar place or city," said an internet user called Amy.

Along with the top three winners, Mircoblog, Taobao and Weixin, Dianping.com's downloadable app was also among the "Baidu's Top 10 Most-Searched Portable Applications 2011" list issued in December 2011, making it the only mobile application focusing on what people needed for day to day living. The list was based on searches conducted on Baidu by hundreds of millions of people resident in China during 2011 with the only criteria being the keyword search volume on Baidu rather than selection by a jury of experts or through online voting, reflecting the popularity of lifestyle applications among hundreds of millions of users. The 2011 App Store List showed that Dianping.com's downloadable app, together with apps from Sina Weibo and QQ, were the most commonly found on the screens of mobile phone users in China.

Long Wei, director and senior vice president of Dianping.com, said, "Sina Weibo fulfills the intellectual aspirations of online users, while Dianping.com is dedicated to meeting basic everyday needs, including eating, drinking and entertainment. Maslow's theory suggests that the most basic levels of human needs must be met before individual desires are considered, or before a person will feel motivated to climb to secondary or higher level wants and desires. A person needs food for basic survival, and three meals a day is considered a necessity. Once the usual eight hours of a workday have been completed, entertainment and leisure are something that people need and count on as a part of their daily existence. Besides, partaking of Chinese cuisine, with its 5,000 years of history, is just an essential part of life for a Chinese individual. All of this comes together to make Dianping.com an indispensable tool of everyday life." As one of leading lifestyle mobile apps in China, Dianping.com has become an indispensable tool for consumers with its comprehensive services covering restaurants, leisure, shopping, weddings and the many other aspects of day to day living.

Getting industry recognition: making your app a must have for the key mobile phone vendors

The underlying element that drives consumer demand lies in the comparative strength of the device makers and the platforms that support the networks. A perfect synergy of the hottest applications and well-known mobile phone vendors plus the supporting platforms certainly will boost the development of the domestic mobile internet. With strong experience in the lifestyle segment, combined with its excellent team and brand power, Dianping.com has made its mobile client the preferred product for manufacturers of major brand mobile phones.

According to the latest information, Dianping.com's products have been used in Android, Apple ios, Symbian, BlackBerry, bada, Windows Phones as well as other platforms, and have been ranked first countrywide in terms of market share among all Android-based mobile phone built-in applications. When it comes to functionality, the information available on the mobile client is fully in sync with and just as complete as the information on Dianping.com's website home site, offering a variety of consumer-oriented city life information, meanwhile the programs, including a map pinpointing the locations of all merchants, recommendations nearby the destination, group-buying, signing in via one's mobile phone, reviews of all services, and downloading of e-coupons, are recognized as a win-win for consumers and local merchants alike.

Dianping.com, widely recognized across the mobile internet industry, received a number of honors in 2011, including "Best Innovative Application in Mobile Internet Industry for 2011", "The Top 10 Mobile Internet Applications in 2011" and "The No.1 Daily-Life-Related Service Software of 2011". Meanwhile, last year, the website signed a partnership with China Unicom to launch "Wo" Dianping, a special application that incorporates the unique features of the "Wo" section available on all of China Unicom's mobile phones.
 
Industry analysts said that the market for lifestyle apps is expected to gain greater traction in 2012. The rapid development of the Chinese mobile internet sector and the ever increasing demand for the apps will facilitate the launch of a large number of such applications. As a leader that has been operating in the space for eight years, Dianping.com now truly is a leader with the number of its high quality customers, the quality of its information content and the superior level of its merchants and will certainly become one of the most commonly used applications in the market. As a result, the future continues to look bright for the company, for the site and for its services and products.

About Dianping.com
Shanghai, China-based Dianping.com, established in April 2003, is a leading online city life guide and one of the first online independent third-party consumer service rating sites worldwide, committed to providing restaurant, shopping, entertainment, leisure and lifestyle services through its interactive platform. The site provides detailed merchant information, featured promotions along with consumer services ratings. In addition, the firm provides one-stop precision marketing solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, including e-coupons, keyword promotion and group buying. Dianping.com has also successfully expanded into the mobile internet sector with the firm's mobile apps having become indispensable to many of the inhabitants of China's major metropolises.

Some stats:
As of Q4 2011, with a footprint encompassing approximately 2,300 cities across China, Dianping.com had more than 42 million of active users posting 20 million reviews monthly on over 1.5 million member merchants.

During Q4 2011, Dianping.com clocked, on average, more than 600 million page views monthly. The site's 18 million unique mobile users accounted for more than 80 per cent of the page views.

To date, Dianping.com has established fully localized operations in more than 20 cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Wuxi, Ningbo, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Qingdao, Shenyang, Dalian, Changsha, Harbin, Fuzhou and Hefei.

Contact:
Chunmei Liao
Dianping.com
[email protected]

SOURCE Dianping.com