Alibaba Tests Online Office Platform “Aookaa”, Currently Providing Tax Declaration Service
Tech Planet reported on Wednesday that Chinese Internet giant Alibaba is testing a new product called “Aookaa”. The new product features a killer whale as its logo as the product may become a new member of Alibaba Zoo, the group branding concept for the Alibaba Economy. Aookaa’s slogan is “easier to work”, which refers to its ability to improve office efficiency.
Currently, Aookaa has both a webpage and a mobile app. The mobile version is integrated within DingTalk, its working platform. With Aookaa, a pilot feature of submitting tax returns is being tested in Zhejiang, Shanghai. This service is not free of charge as users will be charged 5 yuan ($0.79) for each currency and each company per tax declaration. Tax specialists will communicate with users about the charges and their corresponding contract.
As the platform is still in the testing stages and only supports tax declaration services, Aookaa said that more business applications will be accessible in the future.
In 2020, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the online office market ushered in massive growth opportunities. By June 2021, the number of online office users in China exceeded 380 million, an increase of 35.06 million compared with that of December 2020.
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According to the data of the Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Science, in the first half of 2021, the average daily online meeting time of users of Zoom, VooV Meeting and DingTalk reached 36 minutes, and the utilization rate of online office products has exceeded 37.7%. Despite these impressive numbers, there is still much room for growth in the online office market.
Starting from 2020, ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent and other companies have entered the online office market, offering products that are able to conduct online meetings, collaborate on office work, and provide survey questionnaires, among other features.
