How much did Tencent spend on Yuanbao’s advertising?

Wen|  IQ Tax Research Center

Tencent Yuanbao went out of the circle, which was achieved by buying volume.

After connecting to DeepSeek, Tencent Yuanbao started a money-saving mode. Whether it is Tencent’s WeChat, QQ, or platforms such as Station B, Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, and even overseas media and application stores, you can always meet Tencent Yuanbao accidentally.

Tencent Yuanbao’s burning expenses have almost made competitors such as Doubao and Kimi fade out of people’s sight. Tencent, which once despised buying volume, saw DeepSeek’s visit pressure and Yuanbao’s own lack of strength, and immediately chose All in. nbsp;

Nowadays, Tencent has various apps and collectively access DeepSeek. In addition to the suspicion of blindly following the trend, it seems that it also has concerns about the search traffic portal after the advent of the AI era. nbsp;

Therefore, Tencent will continue its strong position through marriage and money; however, can Tencent, which has won many times in the battle for traffic, continue its good luck this time?” nbsp;

The buying volume is also crazy

After tying the knot with DeepSeek, Tencent Yuanbao, which once low-key, instantly occupied the C-position in traffic. nbsp;

On Apple’s free App list in China, Tencent Yuanbao surpassed Doubao and ranked second on the list, second only to DeepSeek. nbsp;

However, just two months ago, the rising star in this AI model was just a little Kalami. nbsp;

AI product list data shows that in December 2024, the number of monthly active users of Doubao, Kimi and Wen Xiaoyan were 71.16 million, 16.69 million and 13.47 million respectively.& nbsp;

While belonging to the AI model camp, Tencent Yuanbao has only 2.91 million monthly active users, ranking 12th in the list. nbsp;

Why was Tencent Yuanbao, who used to stand like a minion, able to quickly complete the counterattack? In addition to DeepSeek being strong enough, banknote ability also seems to be important.

Not long ago, some WeChat users said that the search section of WeChat has been connected to DeepSeek. While using AI to search, users can also choose the in-depth thinking provided by DeepSeek. nbsp;

Tencent also said: Users who have not yet been searched by gray to AI will have the opportunity to see the words “Download Yuanbao (use DeepSeek R1)”on the page by clicking the search bar at the top of the WeChat dialog box. nbsp;

Recently, some users have also seen a download link for Yuan Bao in the WeChat service section; in the WeChat circle of friends, many people often meet Yuan Bao. nbsp;

WeChat, which has more than 1.3 billion monthly users, is a well-deserved national application. It is hard to drain Yuan Bao so much that Tencent prefers him. nbsp;

On the other hand, apps such as QQ, QQ Browser, QQ Music, Tencent Documents, and Tencent Meeting in Tencent’s department also continue to advertise Tencent Yuanbao. nbsp;

In addition to Tencent’s own applications, Tencent Yuanbao’s advertisements often appear on other platforms. nbsp;

From Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, Weibo, Hupu, to various application malls, and even functional apps such as Ink Weather and Mint Health, Tencent Yuanbao’s advertisements are like street leaflets that hit your eye from all directions.

On Station B, UP owners such as Hou Cuicui, Qiuzhi 2046, Lightning Spacecraft, epcdiy, and Qingfeng Senior Brother appeared in different styles to help Tencent Yuanbao call.& nbsp;

In addition to the domestic market, Tencent Yuanbao has also achieved advertising overseas. Some netizens opened the Singapore Lianhe Zaobao App and unexpectedly saw familiar faces; while others watched NBA games, they commented that downloading Tencent Yuanbao could predict the probability of winning. nbsp;

In order to double the advertising effect, Tencent Yuanbao is also trying to buy opponents ‘keywords during the streaming process. Pan Ge searched DeepSeek in Xiaomi App Mall and Baidu, and the first thing he showed was Tencent Yuanbao. nbsp;

Tencent Yuanbao’s crazy advertising has actually just recently erupted. nbsp;

AppGrowing data shows that before February 18, 2025, Tencent Yuanbao’s advertising is at a low level, significantly weaker than Kimi and Doubao in the industry.” nbsp;

However, since February 18, Tencent Yuanbao has quickly surpassed the two. Currently, the number of units released in a single day has exceeded 50,000, which is much higher than the sum of Doubao and Kimi.

Tencent Yuanbao puts so many advertisements, how much does it spend on advertising?& nbsp;

In this regard, a UP owner of Station B told Pan Ge: Advertisements in Station B are generally divided into CPC (pay-per-click) and CPM (pay-per-thousand impressions), of which the CPC click price is at least 0.5 yuan, and the CPM price for 1,000 impressions starts from 5 yuan. rdquo; 

On the other hand, according to AppGrowing data, in the first 20 days of February 2025, Tencent Yuanbao’s advertising volume was approximately 20 million yuan; from February 21 to February 25, the number of advertising groups in Tencent Yuanbao exceeded the total in the previous 20 days. Double. nbsp;

Based on this trend, Tencent Yuanbao’s advertising amount is expected to reach 80 million yuan throughout February 2025, which is equivalent to the total amount of advertising it placed in the third quarter of 2024. nbsp;

However, the above results are only calculated by Pango, and the data has not been officially verified by Tencent. nbsp;

Who won the cooperation?

Tencent is buying crazily for Yuanbao, which feels weird no matter how you look at it.& nbsp;

After all, as early as December 2022, Ma Huateng said in an internal speech: In the future, don’t tell me stories about purchase volume. I no longer believe this. Even if others can succeed, it is not suitable for Tencent. Let others do this, and we will not buy quantity in the future. rdquo; 

Nowadays, the easy failure to renege on its former strategy seems to reveal that Tencent lacks confidence in the AI model. nbsp;

The less confident he is, the more he needs to find foreign aid for himself. Therefore, Tencent Yuanbao and DeepSeek are integrated and use the strength of others to compete with opponents.

However, what are the differences between Tencent Yuanbao connected to the full-blooded version of DeepSeek R1 and the original version of DeepSeek?& nbsp;

To this question, Tencent Yuanbao replied: It belongs to a technical cooperation relationship with DeepSeek. Compared with the original DeepSeek, it integrates content from the WeChat ecosystem and has a faster response speed. rdquo; 

DeepSeek said: There are differences between Tencent’s Yuanbao generation results and the official website. The knowledge base update speed sometimes lags behind DeepSeek, and some answers may contain advertising information.” rdquo; 

In this way, if users are heavy users of WeChat and need to seamlessly connect with the WeChat ecosystem and efficiently handle workplace tasks, Tencent Yuanbao is a better choice; if users pursue professionalism and accuracy, especially in legal, medical and other fields, or need flexibility. Develop, DeepSeek has more advantages. nbsp;

Tencent Yuanbao and DeepSeek hand in hand. Are both parties satisfied with this combination?& nbsp;

For DeepSeek, the emergence of Tencent Yuanbao has alleviated its access pressure. nbsp;

Because when many users talk to DeepSeek, they will encounter a busy server, and its answer response speed is far behind other AI models. nbsp;

For Tencent Yuanbao, DeepSeek not only allows it to gain technology and traffic in competition with Doubao and Kimi, but also helps train and promote its own mixed-source model.

Pan Ge discovered that when opening the Tencent Yuanbao dialog box, the default AI was not DeepSeek, but Tencent Hunyuan; Pan Ge asked the two AIs the same question and found that their thinking logic and answering methods were very similar. nbsp;

Anxiety of traffic

Its own AI model has always been mediocre. After connecting to DeepSeek, it immediately bought a crazy amount. Tencent Yuanbao’s operation is a way to join the game if it can’t beat it.” nbsp;

In addition to Tencent Yuanbao and WeChat, Tencent apps such as Tencent Docs, Enterprise WeChat, Tencent Maps, QQ Music, and QQ Browser have also connected to DeepSeek. nbsp;

Why do Tencent’s various apps embrace DeepSeek? There is a view that this is blindly following the trend.& nbsp;

After all, after DeepSeek exploded during the Spring Festival, various apps such as Baidu, WPS, Dingbao, Flying Book, Little Ape Mouth Math, and Nano AI Search announced that they would be connected to DeepSeek. nbsp;

At the same time, Huawei, Glory, and OPPO in the mobile phone industry, Geely, Ideal, and BYD in the automotive industry, No. 9, Mavericks, and Yadi in the battery car industry, and various brands in other fields have all expressed their desire to cooperate with DeepSeek. nbsp;

Even the YY live broadcast of Miss Sister singing and dancing was recently announced to be connected to DeepSeek, allowing users to experience the real YDS. nbsp;

It can be said that today’s DeepSeek has become the hydropower of the Internet industry, with the same status as infrastructure. nbsp;

However, some netizens believe that the connection of some apps to DeepSeek is a completely fake requirement. nbsp;

For example, if I asked about the theme song of QQ music “Nezha 2”, the AI thought for more than ten seconds before giving the song list, which slowed down the search efficiency; I told Geely to call me in a while, and the AI analyzed it in a long way, and finally put the user’s seat down.

However, there are also some views that Tencent actually had far-sighted plans when holding hands with DeepSeek and then frantically spending money to buy quantity. nbsp;

Because, sitting on the two largest social apps in China, Tencent’s own traffic entrance advantage has become precarious under the impact of various AI models. nbsp;

In the PC Internet era, Tencent started from QQ and gradually became a national-level application, carrying the first memories of the Internet for a whole generation. nbsp;

When the mobile Internet wave hit, WeChat helped Tencent get its first ticket, allowing it to maintain its traffic advantage in various competitions in the future. nbsp;

However, since the popularity of Short Video, the chatter of ByteDance has risen rapidly and has begun to rob WeChat’s traffic and duration; in the era of AI models, bean bags, which belong to the same category as ByteDance, have given Tencent Yuanbao a first-hand advantage. nbsp;

Perhaps it was precisely because it saw the future that the AI model would become a traffic portal for search that Tencent felt panicked and used the dual buff of marriage and money ability to compete with its rivals.

After all, for Internet companies, those who gain traffic gain the world, and it is not too late to lay out. But what is not yet known is whether Tencent, which has received ticket tickets many times, will be as lucky this time as before?& nbsp;