Moonshot AI, a star startup in the domestic big model field, has recently become the focus of the industry due to its adjustment of its market strategy. According to the latest report from Interface News, the company has suspended its placement on multiple Android channels and third-party advertising platforms, which has sparked widespread discussion.
The Dark Side of the Moon was previously known for its radical marketing strategy. Since September 2024, it has invested nearly 200 million yuan in marketing and traffic acquisition every month, and its key investment platforms include Xiaohongshu, B station, Zhihu, etc. Data shows that the cost of its core product Kimi acquires a registered user is about 30 yuan, which is a high level in the industry.
It is worth noting that despite the reduction of the market placement budget, Kimi's natural new user base has seen a significant increase. The user growth trend chart shared by Zhang Yutong, co-founder of the Dark Side of Moon, on social media shows that Kimi's user base showed a rapid upward trend after the Spring Festival, which has triggered in-depth thinking on the effects of "natural growth" and "paid promotion".
Sources revealed that DeepSeek's open source success has had an important impact on the strategic adjustment of the Dark Side of the Moon. After internal review, the team decided to adhere to the goal of the basic model SOTA (State-of-the-art, the best at present). In the future, the Dark Side of the Moon may retrain the basic models and actively explore application layer opportunities. One of the key directions is to develop in-depth research agent products similar to DeepResearch, a subsidiary of OpenAI.