Short videos occupy people's eyeballs, and the value of the ear economy should be revalued.
A few days ago, Dragonfly FM completed a new round of G round financing, led by the listed company Chinese Online, and followed by strategic shareholders Xiaomi, Ruiyi Investment, and Puwei Capital, and the amount of financing has not been disclosed.
Founded in 2011, Dragonfly FM is the first online audio platform in China, with a total of 10 rounds of financing so far.
Living in this era of information excess, listening is a cost-effective way to learn, and sound is the spiritual food of audio users.
In the fragmented time of commuting, bathing, bedtime, doing housework, etc., audio software is hands-free, does not need to be highly concentrated, and becomes the ear companion of many people.
With the rapid development of wearable devices, smart speakers, and the Internet of Vehicles, online audio has gradually replaced traditional broadcasting and radio, releasing diversified use scenarios, continuously attracting users and meeting their listening needs, and by 2019, the scale of Online Audio users in China has reached 490 million people, ranking first in the world.
However, as of 2018, when the penetration rate of mobile Internet users of music, games and online video has reached 88.9%, 82.5% and 73.9% respectively, the penetration rate of the online audio market is only 45.5%, and today, when the mobile Internet dividend is gradually rising to the ceiling, online audio has become the only track with larger penetration space.
The output of high-quality content is the core competitiveness of online audio, and enterprises are building a moat around the content level.
On the one hand, the platform fully taps its own advantages and constantly strives to create high-quality programs in multiple fields and types to meet the segmented content needs of diversified users. On the other hand, the platform cultivates a number of high-quality anchors through various anchor support programs, competitions, colleges, etc. In addition, continuous enrichment and accumulation of copyright content is also an important way for the platform to consolidate its own advantages.
In terms of subdivision, history, cross-talk sketches, and talk shows are the types of audio programs preferred by users, and music, talk shows, and emotions are the types of audio live broadcasts preferred by users.
After nearly 10 years of development, the entire online audio industry has gradually matured, has formed a user payment, user tips, advertising marketing and hardware sales-based business model, of which, user payment is one of the main sources of income of enterprises, including membership subscriptions, one-time buyouts and other forms, 76% of users have produced paid behavior on the audio platform, accompanied by the platform continues to provide quality content, the user's willingness to pay continues to increase.
Recharge tip is an important new growth point in the platform revenue, audio live broadcast can support real-time communication and interaction between the anchor and the listener, the business model of user tipping came into being, not only improve the income level of the platform and the anchor, but also promote the fresh play of the live broadcast business, such as paid continuous wheat, paid Q&A, etc.
In 2019, the market size of China's network audio industry was 17.58 billion yuan, an increase of 55.1% year-on-year, and it is expected to increase to 54.31 billion yuan by 2022.
However, in recent years, the rise of short videos has ruthlessly occupied the mobile phone use time of the three generations of the old, middle and young generations, and it is the eyeball economy that squeezes the ear market.
Short video platforms led by Douyin and Kuaishou have sprung up like mushrooms, and users have achieved explosive growth. As of March 2020, the scale of Online Video Users (including Short Videos) in China reached 850 million, accounting for 94.1% of the total number of Internet users, which means that on average, 85 people per 100 people are brushing videos, of which short video users are as high as 773 million, accounting for nearly 86% of all Internet users.
Image source: Network
Whether it is online audio or long and short videos, they are facing a battle for user time.
According to the data, the scale of digital audio traffic increased from 107 billion minutes in January 2015 to 251.7 billion minutes in June 2020, and in June 2020, the scale of long video traffic and short video traffic was 2.8 times and 7.2 times that of digital audio, respectively.
Although online audio has its own intellectual and emotional attributes, short videos seem to stimulate people's nerves more.
It is said that it is not profitable, but the dragonfly FM that first entered the game was just a late set.
In 2011, Dragonfly FM was launched under the name of "online radio", and at the beginning of its establishment, it quickly gathered nearly 3,000 traditional radio stations at home and abroad, with more than 500,000 users in the month of launch, and exceeded one million the following year, ranking first in the industry.
In terms of content production, adhere to the main PGC model, covering culture, finance, technology, music, audiobooks and other types, relying on content payment and advertising to obtain income, its cooperation with Gao Xiaosong, Jiang Xun, Liang Hongda, Zhang Zhaozhong is known as dragonfly FM's "four big Kong", with the "four big Kong" body, Dragonfly FM positioning is more prominent - rich humanistic temperament.
Constantly polishing content around the head IP, Dragonfly FM launched high-quality content such as "Short and Tight Finger North", "Xiao Yearbook", "Jiang Xun Said Dream of the Red Chamber", "Bureau Talking about Heroes", breaking the "big but not beautiful" image in the Internet product industry, and popularizing a number of elite individual knowledge.
However, in PGC mode, the pain points of Dragonfly FM are quickly exposed.
The dependence on the head IP is increasing day by day, resulting in no big V no traffic situation, with the passage of time, the aesthetic fatigue of IP, the content leads to the gradual loss of users, Dragonfly FM due to its own lack of monetization business model, hematopoiesis is not easy, it is difficult to break through.
On the other hand, lychee and Himalaya are playing hot in the UGC mode.
Through the large-scale introduction of the UGC model of massive IP, a variety of support policies have been launched for content creators to continuously enhance the influence of the content community, on the one hand, to encourage creators to continue high-quality output and ensure a steady stream of fresh content; on the other hand, new categories and forms can continue to emerge, attract users and enhance stickiness.
Himalayan Interface Source: Network
Lychee Interface Source: Network
In this virtuous circle, Dragonfly FM is slightly weak.
In addition, other Internet giants are also eyeing the audio cake.
Today, the penetration rate of music, games, and online video in the industry is more than 70%, and the war between big manufacturers for the length of Internet use is not surprisingly burning in the field of online audio.
In April last year, Tencent Music released its long audio strategy and launched "Cool My Listening", which will take long audio as the next new growth point for content consumption; after two months, ByteDance launched "Tomato Listening" to play genuine novels in tomato novels in the form of audio; in January this year, Tencent Music announced that it would acquire 100% of the equity of Lazy Listening Books for 2.7 billion yuan to further layout the long audio field.
Online audio is seriously rolled up, but also face the challenge of market share being divided by large manufacturers, the entire industry or is likely to usher in a big reshuffle in the near future, Dragonfly FM profit model is single, lack of competitiveness, and where to go.
After the era of podcasts with real-time online listening by computers and the mobile era attached to smartphones, online audio has now entered the era of all-scenarios.
In January 2019, Dragonfly FM proposed the "all-scenario ecology" strategy for the first time.
Source: iResearch
First of all, it adopts the mode of joint operation with hardware manufacturers, and builds an audio ecological operation network with Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO and other manufacturers to achieve ecological win-win on the basis of audio content.
In addition, the car scene, as the scene with the most stickiness of online audio users outside the living room scene, is also the object of development of Dragonfly FM.
Last year, Baidu Apollo Intelligent Vehicle Alliance released a new in-vehicle mini program 2.0, and Dragonfly FM became its first partner; in the same year, Dragonfly FM announced the landing of Zebra Zhixing System to jointly focus on the application development of voice interaction and intelligent audio in car scenes.
In the face of the blue ocean of the Internet of Things and the Internet of Vehicles, Dragonfly FM continues to try and increase its size through its all-scenario ecological strategy, but it is not dominant in the reality of low market share, and it is probably no longer easy to catch up with the ecological layout in those years.
Eyeballs can handle huge amounts of information, but fast-paced video media may not be able to bring peace and thinking.
Online audio has a strong sense of companionship, a strong sense of immersion, and a strong knowledge attribute, which to a certain extent makes people meet the needs of spiritual upgrading, which is a precious existence in this noisy and noisy era of information explosion.
However, in the Internet dividend outbreak period, Dragonfly FM failed to jump out of a single business model to meet the long-tail needs of users, with the end of the dividend, it is difficult to catch up with the competitors who are gradually plumping their wings, coupled with the big manufacturers have crossed the border to grab the beach, Dragonfly FM must continue to explore new ways to survive.