AutoNavi, Sina partner to tap users

AUTONAVI, China's largest mobile map service provider, and Sina Weibo plan to integrate their location and social services as both firms aim to tap their total user base of about half a billion users.

With 400 million users, Sina is likely to yield income from the location service through its popular twitter-like Weibo services in the long run. AutoNavi has 100 million users in the domestic market.

"The cooperation represents the trend of SoLoMo, or the convergence of social, location and mobile services," said Qie Jianjun, vice president of Nasdaq-listed AutoNavi, yesterday.

SoLoMo is set to reap considerable income and loyal customers to the firms, industry watchers said.

Both firms will debut the service in the first half of 2013.

By the end of the third quarter, AutoNavi led the domestic mobile map services market with 29.5 percent share, Analysys International said.

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