India most important market outside China for WPS Office

China-based Kingsoft Office is strengthening its footprint in India by introducing a software suite in the country. However, the WPS Office suite isn't unheard of in India. Although not officially available in India, the WPS Office comes installed on many Chinese smartphones, resulting in 23 million active monthly users in the country.

Comprising writer, presenter and spreadsheet, similar to the Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel, Kingsoft Office has an active monthly user-based of 310 million users across 200 countries including China, England and the US. The Office suite is available as free software and there is a premium version as well. The premium version priced at $29.9 per year is an ad-free version with more templates, more PDF tools such as PDF editor, page extractor, more cloud service such as the ability to upload larger files and more cloud storage (20GB).

The premium version is not restricted to one device and can be accessed across devices. It also supports up to 9 connected devices. The company is offering a 35 per cent "back-to-school" discount to the users until September 15. Other than WPS Office suite, other offerings include Kingsoft PowerWord and WPS Mail that run on major operating platforms including Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. Users who already have the WPS version on their smartphone can upgrade automatically to WPS Office 2020 with a single click

Om Buffalo, WPS Product Liaison, WPS India, says, "India is our largest market outside of China and that is why we chose to announce the official launch of WPS Office 2020 here. Additionally, we believe there are several other factors unique to India that makes it an ideal market for us. They are looking for high-quality tools and WPS is the perfect cost-effective solution for them with the features of their existing office software. We still have pre-install deals with lots of smartphone manufacturers as we see a lot of potential in the mobile market."

For launching WPS Office 2020 in India, the company has localised the number system for the Indian market and has already added some India-themed templates. Kingsoft Office is also working on establishing partnerships with more local designers to create more localized templates. Currently WPS is available in Hindi and English and hopes to add more Indian languages in the future.

Kingsoft Office believes that the new-age workforce is always on the move and this means there is an increased need to create, access and collaborate across devices regardless of their environment. Identifying this trend, WPS Office in 2017 introduced complete document storage and management service called WPS Cloud where users can access files either directly from within WPS Office, or through the WPS Cloud web portal.

Buffalo adds, "Kingsoft Office customers range from government agencies and enterprise departments to individuals, from PC to mobile. For WPS Office 2020 in India, we are currently focusing on our B2C model, i.e., individuals including freelancers, students, homemakers, and anyone looking for a high-quality, and affordable Office software suite."

WPS Office faces stiff competition from Microsoft Office 365 and many other free office suites. Highlighting the USP of WPS Office 2020,  Buffalo adds,  "While many Office software exists in the market, most are either high-priced or they lack the potential to cater to the needs of the dynamic worker. The suite is light on the device which saves valuable storage space; it is fully compatible with all mainstream office formats so that users don't have to worry about installing multiple office suites to share or collaborate; it supports all major platforms and allows cross-device synchronisation for users who are on-the-go. The suite also features massive libraries of free pre-built templates and an intuitive tab-style interface, perfect for users to quickly and easily prepare perfect looking documents that showcase their unique styles. Further, WPS Office 2020 is specially designed to run seamlessly on Apple/macOS devices, a challenge that most macOS users have faced with other suites in the market. We are product agnostic and we are sure that users switching from other software suites are going to see the value we aim to deliver.

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