The layoff storm has not passed, and the increase in the price of members has pulled iQiyi back to the whirlpool of public opinion.
The former is to swing the throttling knife internally, and now, the latter is to move the mind of external open source.
On December 15, the official Weibo of iQIYI VIP members released a message saying that from 0:00 on December 16, the subscription price of iQIYI Gold VIP members will be updated. After the price increase, the gold VIP ordinary monthly subscription and continuous monthly subscription have both gone up a step, breaking through 30 yuan and 20 yuan. In addition, the price of ordinary season card members and consecutive package seasons increased by 10 yuan and 5 yuan, crossing the threshold of 70 yuan and 60 yuan.
The Beijing News Shell financial reporter combed the four major video platforms and found that the current price of iQiyi and Tencent video members is basically the same, followed by the price of Mango TV, and Youku still has a large difference.
About two months after taking the lead in canceling the advanced on-demand, iQiyi carried the banner of price increases, huge losses pressed the top, and the lack of explosive models became an unavoidable topic, and whether users bought it had to play a question mark.
The monthly membership price is 30 yuan, which is equal to Tencent Video
In the past two years, member price increases have become a common move on video platforms.
In November last year, iQiyi made its first adjustment to the price of video memberships, an increase of about 25%. Immediately after Tencent Video announced a membership price increase in April this year, the monthly membership was raised from 15 yuan to 30 yuan.
Shell financial reporter noted that the price adjustment of iQIYI members is only concentrated in ordinary gold members, including TV star diamond members still maintain the original price. After the price increase, the Gold VIP ordinary monthly subscription member is raised from 25 yuan to 30 yuan, and the continuous monthly subscription is raised from 19 yuan to 22 yuan. In addition, the average season card member is raised from 68 yuan to 78 yuan, and the continuous season package is raised from 58 yuan to 63 yuan, and the price of ordinary and consecutive annual card members remains unchanged.
On December 15, Shell Financial Reporter compared the member price of the video platform to see that after iQIYI adjusted the price again, the single-month membership price was equal to Tencent Video, and the price of members in the continuous monthly and consecutive package seasons was higher than that of Tencent Video, reaching 22 yuan and 63 yuan. In contrast, Tencent members are 20 yuan and 58 yuan, respectively.
In terms of the four major video platforms, the overall price of Mango TV members is slightly lower than that of iQiyi and Youku, but the difference is small, except for the annual pass, the single-month difference remains at about 3-5 yuan. In addition, the pricing of Youku video monthly card members stays below the level of 20 yuan, which is far away from the first three. At present, Youku VIP is mainly driven by Taobao 88VIP.
In the past two years, the video platform has added a variety of membership models, iQIYI on the basis of gold members, online can have TV viewing rights, advanced on-demand rights of Star Diamond members, a single month purchase price of 60 yuan, is 2.4 times the average gold member. Tencent Video also launched a super film and television VIP for TV users, the price is 50 yuan / month, in addition, there are sports members and so on.
For this price adjustment, iQIYI said that the subscription price of the video platform has been low, which has affected the healthy development of the industry. In order to establish a more benign industrial ecology, let excellent content producers have returns, and ultimately provide members with more and better content, it was decided to adjust the price of members.
A video giant that relies on membership revenue
iQiyi's move seems to have been anticipated by the outside world. In early December, "iQIYI" was exposed to be laying off 20%-40% of employees, and after the news came out, iQIYI's US stocks fell by 9.46%. Since 2021, iQiyi's market value has shrunk by more than 70%.
The video giant has reached a critical moment of turning a loss into a profit. If layoffs are the first step to throttle, member price increases are seen as a step of "open source".
In the 11 years since its establishment, "loss" has always been a label that iQiyi cannot avoid, and since 2016, the total loss has exceeded 30 billion yuan and raised more than 50 billion yuan.
On November 17, iQIYI announced its unaudited financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2021. In the third quarter, iQIYI's total revenue reached 7.6 billion yuan, an increase of 6% year-on-year; net loss attributable to iQIYI was 1.7 billion yuan, an increase of 41.7% compared with the same period last year.
From the perspective of iQIYI's revenue structure, membership and advertising are still its main revenue channels, of which membership service revenue is 4.3 billion yuan, accounting for more than half of the total revenue, and online advertising service revenue is 1.7 billion yuan, accounting for 23% of the total revenue.
At present, iQIYI's revenue increase still depends on the growth of user subscription fees. iQIYI CEO Gong Yu said in the second quarter earnings conference call last year, "Subscription charges for users will remain the main revenue in the future, but not the only revenue." ”
After the first price increase in November last year, membership growth was not significantly affected, and 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 a million membership growth, but in the third quarter, there was a decline of nearly 3 million members.
Membership growth has entered a bottleneck period, and it is inevitable that individual users will need to pay more. In the third quarter, iQIYI achieved a certain growth in ARPPU (average revenue per paying user), and this part of the growth is coming from other value-added fees such as membership payment and advanced on-demand.
It is worth mentioning that at the end of August this year, the Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission named Tencent Video to engage in bundled sales in advance of on-demand, and labeled it as a "routine loan". Advanced on-demand has been controversial since its inception, and it also reflects the profit anxiety of video platforms. The harvest mode is also constantly upgraded in the user's spit, from the members to see the advanced on-demand to the tidbits to unlock, episode by episode, 3 yuan and 3 yuan, unconsciously the user spends tens of yuan to watch a drama.
At the beginning of October this year, iQiyi took the lead in canceling the advanced on-demand. At that time, CEO Gong Yu said, "Continuously improving the consumer experience and satisfaction of our members is our long-term goal, even if short-term revenue is damaged." ”
The explosion is missing, and the legend is difficult to continue
In fact, relying on user payments to generate profits is a path that has long been proven to be viable.
Last November, Netflix raised its membership pricing for the fifth time. Currently, Netflix's standard and premium subscription services are priced at $13.99 (about 89 yuan) and $17.99 (about 114 yuan) per month, respectively.
Since its inception, Netflix has been through investment in creating high-quality content, and then with high-quality content to attract users to pay to create profits, forming a virtuous circle of "content investment - high-quality content - user payment - content investment", this year created a phenomenon-level hot drama "Squid Game", creating a "value of influence" of 900 million US dollars.
The key word in this is high-quality content, under the entry of #iQiyi announced the adjustment of membership prices, many netizens complained that "there are not many good dramas this year".
Although Gong Yu has publicly stated that the annual investment in content is as high as 20 billion, from the performance point of view, iQiyi's content performance this year is dismal.
In terms of TV dramas, last year's popular Mist Theater failed to continue the legend, and the planned 4 dramas have been broadcast 3 times, and the slightly higher popular "Octagonal Pavilion Mist" Douban score is only 5.7 points, and the number of ratings is 59,000.
Last year's "Hidden Corner" with the same theme scored 8.8 points, the number of ratings reached 992,000 people, and the love theater launched this year, from the heat of "A Lifetime" and "Become Your Day", performed better, but there is still a certain distance from the hit.
In terms of variety shows, the control of talent shows has led to the suspension of iQiyi's S-level variety show "Youth with You 3" halfway through, with greater losses. The new variety show "Bursting Stage" has also been affected to a certain extent, and has been postponed many times.
Behind this, the soaring cost has become the main reason why the company's income increase and no profit. In the third quarter, iQIYI's revenue cost reached 7 billion yuan, an increase of 10% over the same period in 2020, covering almost all of the company's revenue. Among them, the content cost expenditure was 5.3 billion yuan, an increase of 13% over the same period last year. Both grew faster than revenue.
The high content investment has not been able to obtain a higher value return, and the street drama is everywhere, and the boutique drama is difficult to find. Gong Yu said in the third quarterly report conference call that the shortage of content supply, "The epidemic is the most direct cause, for example, so far, the number of movies launched this year is not as good as half of the same period last year, the number of TV dramas online is less than one-third of the same period in previous years, new online dramas are delayed due to review reasons, and the quality after going online is also discounted, and this is only a part." There is a big problem with the content supply. ”
Nowadays, it seems that in the closed loop of "content investment - quality content - user payment - content investment", what needs to be prioritized is to build high-quality content, rather than payment, in the field of long video, it is still content that can make users pay.
Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Song Meilu Editor Wang Jinyu Proofreader Yang Xuli