With the advancement of science and technology and the awakening of consumers’ personal consumption value, the term “live broadcast economy” has frequently appeared in people’s vision since its birth.
Since the beginning of this year, under the “information network + epidemic scenario”, the live broadcast economy has blossomed and developed rapidly in various fields. Game live broadcasts, e-commerce live broadcasts, and education live broadcasts have been sought after by capital and consumers, and they have become the hottest outlets in 2020. .
In the post-epidemic era, the live broadcast economy is no longer a “stoppable measure” under the epidemic, but as a new business model and model that truly integrates into social development, accepting capital and consumers’ selection. How to maintain high growth? How to seek diversified development in the current era of serious homogeneity? After thousands of sails are exhausted, this is still an era where content is paramount and quality is king.
Game live broadcast meets new growth points
After the “scandal” spread for a long time, the merger of the two giants of the game live broadcast platform finally ushered in the “official announcement”. A few days ago, Huya Live and Douyu Live both issued announcements stating that they had received preliminary non-binding suggestions from Tencent, proposing Douyu and Huya to merge and exchange shares. At the same time, Huanju Times, which has incubated Huya, also announced that it will transfer 30 million Huya Class B shares to Tencent for US$810 million.
From the “Thousand Broadcasting War” spawned by the “crazy entry” of capital in 2016, to Tencent, which firmly grasps the upstream copyright resources, is pushing the “tiger fish internal battle” to end. In 2020, the competitive landscape of China’s game live broadcast industry will become increasingly fierce and clear. .
“From the perspective of the long-term development of the game live broadcast platform industry, the merger of Douyu and Huya is an inevitable event.” Insiders told the Financial Times reporter. On the one hand, Tencent, as the major shareholder of the two companies, can reduce internal consumption after the merger. Integrating resources has the opportunity to derive more profit growth points; on the other hand, “Houlang” b-station, Kuaishou, Douyin, etc. are catching up fiercely. Under the general trend of user growth facing the ceiling and the continuous expansion of platform content boundaries, Although Huya and Douyu have first-mover advantages, they still need to continuously deepen and widen their own “moat”.
According to the financial report disclosed by Huya and Douyu, in the first quarter of this year, the user scale of the two companies on the PC side has a clear downward trend, and the overall monthly active user growth rate has also declined. From the “capital game” that the market laughed at the beginning to today’s content ecological competition, through the era of “burning money”, live content is the core competitiveness to retain existing users.
At present, in addition to the original game and event live broadcast content, the top game live broadcast platform is constantly expanding the diversified content forms such as self-made variety shows, social welfare, and e-commerce shopping. Take Kuaishou Live as an example. As a game live broadcast platform under the short video platform Kuaishou, it has developed rapidly in recent years in terms of anchor cultivation, active users, e-sports content, and commercial monetization. IT orange public information shows that Kuaishou has completed its last round of financing before the IPO in December last year, with a financing amount of $3 billion.
iResearch Institute said that with the continuous establishment of game live broadcast copyright regulations and the gradual increase in the value of e-sports copyright, the live broadcast platform will pay more attention to the development of refined operations and diversified models. At the same time, business development such as cloud gaming, live streaming delivery, and content payment has become a new growth point for the platform, and the second half of the game live streaming industry will be even more exciting.
Live broadcast e-commerce industry accelerates reshuffle
During the epidemic, the weakening of offline channels has made online traffic an important source of customer acquisition. Live streaming e-commerce is surging. From celebrities to government officials in many places, from individual industrial and commercial households to large business owners, “everything can be broadcast live, everyone can bring The development trend of “goods” has become more and more prominent, and live streaming has become an important way to promote economic recovery.
As the most sensitive participant in the market, capital will naturally not be absent from the “feast” of “live broadcast + e-commerce”. IT orange statistics show that as of August 12, there have been 18 investment and financing events in the field of live e-commerce this year, and the amount of investment and financing reached 1.353 billion yuan. In this field, only 5 investment and financing events were realized in 2019, and the investment and financing amount was only 65.5 million yuan. On August 4, Youbo, a micro-live e-commerce platform based on the WeChat ecosystem, received the first round of financing of 10 million yuan, and the investor was rich in capital. Under the background that established e-commerce platforms such as Taobao Live have “settled in the world”, the new forces are still breaking the game.
In fact, the performance of live streaming has not disappointed capital. According to data from Alibaba Tmall, during this year’s “June 18” shopping promotion, as of 7:00 on June 16, Taobao live broadcast guided transaction value increased by more than 250% year-on-year, and 13 live broadcast rooms had a cumulative transaction volume of over 100 million yuan.
However, behind the rapid rise of live e-commerce, a bubble is also emerging. False propaganda, data falsification, incorrect version of goods, difficulty in after-sales service and other kinds of chaos are frequent, and live broadcast e-commerce is deviating from the essence of business. In addition to the outbreak of “quantity”, how to ensure the improvement of the “quality” of the industry also requires policy support.
In July, the “Code of Conduct for Online Live Marketing” issued by the China Advertising Association, the “Basic Standards for Live Video Shopping Operation and Service” and the “Evaluation Guidelines for Online Shopping Integrity Service System” formulated by the Media Shopping Professional Committee of the China Business Federation have all been The implementation will effectively deter the chaos in the live broadcast e-commerce industry.
When the bubble bursts and rationality returns, where will the development of the live broadcast e-commerce industry be? Zhao Jian, Dean of Xizawa Research Institute, said that in the long run, the value of live e-commerce lies in improving the efficiency of the industry chain and reducing costs and bringing new opportunities for participants. When the bubble bursts and the wind is over, live e-commerce companies can still enjoy the benefits of “traffic bonus” and “data bonus”. At the same time, the application of 5G technology will also become an important driving force for its future development.
Capital actively deploys education live broadcast
During the epidemic prevention and control period, the “home economy” not only sparked live broadcast e-commerce and game live broadcasts, but also brought massive traffic to the education live broadcast industry. The online education penetration rate rapidly increased from less than 10% to nearly 100%. According to statistics from iResearch, in the first quarter of 2020, China’s online education market reached 68.06 billion yuan, of which K12 training accounted for nearly 30%. The total number of monthly independent devices for online education APP remained stable, about 430 million units in March.
In March of this year, at the eighth anniversary of the establishment of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, stated that education is the company’s new business direction for cross-border attempts and one of the company’s three major focuses in the future. These remarks not only confirmed the position of education in the new business of Bytes, but also revealed the fact that online education has become a new capital outlet.
IT orange statistics show that as of August 12, there have been 15 investment and financing events in the field of education live broadcast this year, and the amount of investment and financing reached 12.18 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 8 times. Among the top 10 financing cases in the first half of this year, two of them were online education. Yuandaodao received the lead investment from Hillhouse Capital, followed by Tencent, Boyu Capital and other G rounds of financing of US$1 billion; job help obtained Fang Yuan Capital and Tiger Fund led the investment, and Sequoia China and other new and existing shareholders followed up in Series E financing of US$750 million.
Among the many subdivisions of the education live broadcast, K12 online education has attracted special attention from capital. In the fierce long-term live teaching market, Qingbei Online School, Xueersi, Yuanjiao, etc. present a “multi-strong separation” situation; in the short-term live teaching market, Bytedance launched the Xuelang APP; in the online small class, except In addition to VIPKID, which received US$150 million in Series E investment from Tencent last year, ByteDance also recently launched the Qingbei Xiaoban APP, becoming a pathfinder for small classes.
Some education investors said that in the post-epidemic era, the layout of the education live broadcast industry is a must. When the high-speed customer dividends are exhausted, whether online education institutions can retain the huge traffic obtained during the epidemic is the key to development. Education live broadcasts The best way to acquire customers is to improve product content, service and quality.
