iQIYI responded to the member price adjustment: continue to do a good job as a content service user so that excellent content producers can be rewarded

On December 15, iQIYI announced that it will adjust its Gold Membership price on the 16th of this month, and the price increase is mainly for the iQIYI Gold Monthly And Seasonal Card, and the annual pass price remains unchanged.

iQIYI's new membership pricing increased by between 9% and 20%, and the monthly card pricing increased by 20% to 30 yuan / month, matching the price of Tencent Video's monthly card. The price of the consecutive annual and annual passes remained at 218 yuan and 248 yuan, and the price of the consecutive annual packages was about 18 yuan per month, which was still in a low range. For the price adjustment, iQIYI said, "The subscription price of the video platform has been low, and this phenomenon has affected the healthy development of the industry." In order to establish a more benign industrial ecology, let excellent content producers have a return, and ultimately provide members with more and better content, we decided to adjust the price of members. We will continue to strive to do a good job in content, products, and services to users. Thank you for your understanding and support. ”

In November 2020, iQIYI made its membership price adjustment for the first time in 9 years, and judging from the multi-quarter financial report data and user consumption, the price increase did not have a significant impact on its membership size. In the first quarter of this year, iQIYI's membership size increased by about 3.6 million, and in the second quarter, it also achieved an increase in the membership size of nearly one million, and the membership scale in the third quarter decreased slightly, but it was still stable above the 100 million-level basic disk, and iQIYI achieved a year-on-year increase in ARPU value for many consecutive quarters.

In early October, iQIYI took the lead in canceling the controversial advance on-demand, and iQIYI CEO Gong Yu said that "continuously improving the consumer experience and satisfaction of our members is our long-term goal, even if short-term revenue is damaged." Subsequently, Tencent Video and Youku also announced the cancellation of advanced on-demand. So far, China's three mainstream video platforms have completely bid farewell to this controversial model.

While eliminating advanced on-demand is recognized by users, video platforms still need to explore effective solutions that balance user satisfaction and platform revenue. Earlier this month, the news of iQiyi's layoffs came out, and the long-term losses and operational difficulties of video websites once again received widespread attention. At this time, iQIYI's increase in membership prices is not only a key improvement to its long-term low price status, but also an inevitable choice for video websites to continue to supply content in the long run.