Waze, Google's map service, will lay off some of its staff: changing the advertising profit model

According to news in the morning of June 28, Beijing time, Google is reportedly integrating its mapping products, so its Waze mapping service will lay off some employees.

Chris Phillips (Chris Phillips) runs Google's Geo maps division. In an email to employees on Tuesday, Philip admitted that the company was adjusting its Waze strategy to include Google Advertising instead of using a separate advertising system. Affected by the strategic adjustment, some employees will be laid off.

"We have decided to change the Waze advertising profit model, which is managed by GBO (Global Business Organization), similar to Google Maps," Philip said. "Unfortunately, there will be layoffs in Waze Ads jobs that focus on revenue generation, such as sales, marketing, operations and analytics."

According to Philip's explanation, Google hopes to further optimize its Waze Ads product to make it more scalable. In the future, Google will phase out existing Waze Ads and focus on building Google Ads-driven Waze Ads.

How many jobs will be laid off? The e-mail didn't say. The Waze department employs more than 500 people. Google bought Waze for $1.3 billion in 2013.

In January, Google announced 12000 job cuts, or about 6 per cent of its total workforce, as revenue growth continued to slow. Not only layoffs, Google also cut some projects, some projects shrank, Google will pay more attention to efficiency in the future.

Google has integrated Waze with Geo since last December. Waze App uses crowdsourcing technology to determine the fastest route from location A to location B. it also provides up-to-date traffic information. Waze currently has about 140 million active users.