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Chinese technology group Tencent has bought a stake in a German-owned mapping company in an attempt to win market share from Baidu and Alibaba, as the three gear up to compete for driverless cars’ navigation systems.
中国科技企业腾讯(Tencent)收购了德国一家地图绘制企业的部分股权，此举意在从百度(Baidu)和阿里巴巴(Alibaba)那里抢夺市场份额——这三家企业正在无人驾驶汽车导航系统方面展开角逐。
Tencent, along with Chinese mapping provider NavInfo and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, will jointly buy a 10 per cent stake in Here at a price of up to EURO241m, the companies announced on Tuesday. The purchase would reduce the shareholdings of Here’s owners, the German carmakers Audi, BMW and Daimler.
相关公司周二宣布，腾讯将联合中国地图供应商四维图新(NavInfo)和新加坡主权财富基金——政府投资公司(GIC)，以2.41亿欧元的价格收购Here 10%的股权。这次收购将降低Here现有股东——德国车企奥迪(Audi)、宝马(BMW)和戴姆勒(Daimler)的持股比例。
Providing maps for autonomous cars requires a technological leap. Maps designed to be read by people have a 10 metre accuracy level but autonomous cars will need to know where they are to the nearest centimetre.
为自动驾驶汽车提供地图需要一个技术飞跃。为人们阅读而设计的地图的精度为10米级别，但自动驾车汽车需要以厘米精度了解自己的位置。
“With the benefit of Here’s technology, we’re mainly planning to advance our in-car navigation systems and mapping services for driverless cars,” said a spokesperson for NavInfo, which provides map data for Tencent.
“在Here技术的帮助下，我们主要计划推进面向无人驾驶汽车的车载导航系统和地图服务，”为腾讯提供地图数据的四维图新(NavInfo)的发言人表示。
“This collaboration . . . facilitates Tencent’s exploration of future technologies including autonomous driving and artificial intelligence,” said Julian Ma, a vice-president of Tencent.
“这一合作……为腾讯探索未来技术——包括自动驾驶和人工智能——创造了条件，”腾讯副总裁马喆人(Julian Ma)表示。
Tencent faces an uphill battle for smartphone map users in a sector dominated by Baidu and Alibaba’s recent entrant Amap, which it acquired two years ago from AutoNavi. Figures from iResearch, the consultancy, show that Baidu and Alibaba’s maps have around 200m monthly users each, whereas Tencent’s standalone map application has only 8m.
在这个由百度和新对手高德地图（Amap，阿里巴巴两年前从高德软件(AutoNavi)手中收购）主导的领域，腾讯在争夺智能手机地图用户上面临着一场硬仗。咨询公司艾瑞咨询(iResearch)的数据显示，百度和阿里巴巴的地图各自拥有2亿左右的月活跃用户，而腾讯独立的地图应用仅有800万月活跃用户。
However, this figure would rise dramatically if it included the 850m users of the company’s messaging app WeChat who might use the app’s built-in mapping services — for instance, to share their location with friends.
然而，如果把腾讯旗下的即时通讯应用微信（可能使用该应用内置的地图服务）的8.5亿用户包括在内——比如与朋友分享自己的位置——该数据将大幅上升。
