By Xinmei Shen

Copyright scmp

Amap, Alibaba Group Holding’s answer to Google Maps, saw a record 360 million daily users on the first day of China’s “golden week” National Day holiday, as the company strengthens its local service offerings amid increasing competition with Meituan.
On Wednesday, the first day of the extended eight-day break, Amap provided navigation for trips totalling over 9 billion km, also a record high, according to Alibaba, owner of the Post.
Meanwhile, Amap’s new road safety alert system, Eagle Eye Guardian, introduced on Sunday, issued over 290 million alerts for unusual driving behaviour on Wednesday, Alibaba said.
The surge in usage comes as Alibaba enhances Amap’s capabilities to compete with food delivery giant Meituan in the local services sector, which connects consumers with offline services like restaurant bookings, meal deliveries and hotel reservations.
In August, Amap launched an artificial intelligence assistant, Xiaogao, which processed more than 2.6 billion user requests on Wednesday, Alibaba said. Supported by Alibaba’s in-house AI models, Xiaogao is designed to navigate roads, plan trips and recommend places to visit based on natural language commands from users.

Last month, Alibaba unveiled a feature called Amap Street Stars, which uses AI to rank offline destinations such as restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions, integrating data such as navigation patterns and user reviews. The service directly competes with Meituan’s Dianping restaurant rating app.
Amap Street Stars represented “a significant step towards Alibaba’s vision for a super-app strategy” and could pose “another hit to Meituan’s cash cow”, JPMorgan analysts said in a research note in September.
Jefferies analysts said last month that the service was expected to enhance the role of Amap, which has 170 million daily active users, as a gateway for lifestyle services.
Alibaba said more than 40 million users logged in to try the new ranking feature on its launch day.
In response to Amap Street Stars, Meituan announced plans to use AI models to screen consumer reviews of restaurants and merchants, along with launching a “quality food delivery” service on its Dianping app.
Previously a unit of Alibaba’s Local Services Group, Amap – which also operates a ride-hailing service – is now categorised under “all other” businesses as part of the tech giant’s efforts to streamline operations and focus on its core e-commerce and cloud computing segments.
As of June, Amap was China’s fourth most popular mobile app by monthly active users, following Tencent Holdings’ super app WeChat, ByteDance’s TikTok equivalent Douyin and Alibaba’s online marketplace Taobao, according to analytic firm QuestMobile. From April to June, Amap averaged 895.5 million monthly active users, while WeChat had 1.1 billion.
Amid a protracted battle in the instant shopping sector, Alibaba, Meituan and other Chinese internet platforms are consolidating their business units to enhance their e-commerce ecosystems.
Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming said in August that the company’s long-term goal was to create a “comprehensive consumption platform” that addresses consumers’ “full spectrum of shopping and daily life needs”.
“We aim to offer the best experience to the largest consumer base with the highest purchase frequency” to ultimately lead in a 30 trillion yuan (US$4.2 trillion) market, he said.