(Yicai) Sept. 5 -- Losses are shrinking at Lark Technologies, the work-collaboration software provider owned by China’s ByteDance, and annual recurring revenue is expected to top USD300 million this year, a 50 percent year-on-year jump, according to its chief executive officer.

Lark's ARR doubled to USD200 million last year from USD200 million in 2022, David Xie said at a press conference yesterday when making the company’s prediction for this year.

Competing in the software as a service space, Lark offers integrated tools such as messaging, project management, cloud storage, and video conferencing. Launched in 2018 and known as Feishu in China, it vies with platforms such as Tencent's WeChat Work and Alibaba’s DingTalk.

Xie told Yicai that China's SaaS space is showing modest growth. Despite long-standing challenges such as difficulties in getting customers to pay for services and project-based systems, providers can attract paying customers by clearly addressing user pain points and avoiding rushing into business diversification, he added.

Domestic SaaS providers need not replicate the US model entirely, as the US market is more responsive to customer pain points, Xie said, adding that cultivating a willingness to pay among clients remains a challenge in the Chinese market.

Lark's products are inherently standardized, Xie said regarding the issue of project-based systems in the SaaS space. For customer requirements with universal applicability, the firm collaborates with clients on development, while for highly personalized needs, it may opt to open application programming interfaces to third parties or decline the request, he said.

On integrating artificial intelligence and SaaS, Xie said that despite continuous improvements in AI over the past year, actual implementation this year has not lived up to expectations. AI may take five years to significantly impact the business-to-business sector, during which time industry players should focus on perfecting each product, he added.

Editor: Martin Kadiev