Edit | Yu Bin
Produced by | Chaoqi Network "Yu see column"
For a long time, every time iQiyi's dilemma is mentioned, everyone knows that it is trapped in the business model, rather than the VVIP questions it frequently encounters, membership price increases or disguised price increases.
But even if the problem is so clear, iQIYI's dilemma in the company's operation and user reputation has never been alleviated.
On the one hand, it is the largest online video platform in China, but on the other hand, it is a series of problems such as perennial losses, declining stock prices, and user doubts, which makes iQiyi's situation worrying.
Just this month, iQiyi began a continuous "hot search" journey.
First at the beginning of the month because of the company's layoffs and triggered a lot of discussion, according to the network legend law, iQIYI's layoff ratio this time is very high; then, in recent days, iQIYI officially announced the price increase for gold VIP members, and the increase in the price of iQIYI ordinary members monthly cards and quarterly members ranged from 8% to 20%.
It is conceivable that this time, iQiyi's price increase has ushered in a large number of netizens.
"Too expensive", "Price increases", "iQiyi is starting to do tricks again"... Why is it always so difficult for everyone to accept the price increase of iQIYI members? Compared with the price increase of competitor video members, it seems that every price increase of iQiyi will set off a greater discussion?
It is worth noting that at the end of last year, iQiyi members just raised the price once, and the "rhythm" of this year's increase also made many netizens wonder.
So, is iQiyi's price increase reasonable?
According to the official introduction, it seems reasonable. iQiyi said that "the subscription price of the video platform has always been low", which will affect the benign development of the online video industry, so in order to continue to provide more and better content, the price increase has become a necessary means.
However, the so-called "video platform membership subscription price has been low" does not seem to be the manufacturer's self-talk, consumers do not feel that the price is low? Who is your low compared to? All kinds of questions are still worth asking.
Interestingly, after this price increase, iQiyi's monthly and seasonal cards have "caught up" with Tencent Video. Overall, iQIYI has become the one with the highest member price in the domestic Youku, iQIYI, and Tencent Video head camps.
It can be seen that iQIYI's so-called low membership price is not justified in China, and it is indeed "low" compared to foreign countries. However, the content and services provided by iQiyi are worth it for users such as foreign video giants such as Netflix?
It can be seen that iQiyi's price increase is really lacking in "theoretical foundation".
In this way, the biggest reason for the price increase of iQIYI members can be attributed to iQIYI's continuous losses.
According to relevant statistics, since its founding eleven years, iQiyi has not yet achieved profitability, considering that the overall stock price of Chinese stocks has declined in recent years, and the market value of iQIYI has evaporated greatly, so iQIYI seems to have to increase its price - because if it does not increase in price, iQiyi will be more and more short of money.
Of course, this kind of behavior of extending the "sickle" to the user because of the company's operating losses is not reasonable or not, after all, the user is not obliged to pay for your expansion and loss, in the end, the price of online video membership still depends on the content and service provided by the platform.
But from this point of view, iQIYI is difficult to give users a satisfactory answer, which may be the root cause of every iQIYI price increase that is so difficult for users to accept.
In the context of perennial losses and profit models that have not been verified, whether it is layoffs or member price increases, these actions have long been the results that the market can predict, in this environment, perhaps the most important thing for iQIYI is how to find a benign development path in the business model.
Unfortunately, iQIYI originally had the opportunity to use the power of the capital market to achieve "leapfrogging", but from the current situation, iQIYI has entered the old road.
In March 2018, iQIYI, which was founded for eight years, successfully landed on the US stock market, when The Chinese stock market was booming, and the international environment was not as complicated as it is today, so iQIYI's stock price once took off, and at that time, iQIYI told the story of the "Chinese version of Netflix".
But soon, the losses that could not be reversed by the listing, as well as the decline in the company's stock price, made iQIYI in trouble again, according to the latest third quarter 2021 financial report, iQIYI achieved a total revenue of nearly 7.6 billion yuan in the third quarter of this year, a net loss of more than 1.7 billion yuan, and a year-on-year increase in losses.
Capital is no longer optimistic, the loss situation has not eased, coupled with the fact that the long video platform is no longer the focus of the mobile Internet, other platforms represented by short videos are still dividing up iQIYI's users and traffic, which makes it difficult for iQIYI to continue to be optimistic in the future context.
It is certain that price increases and disguised price increases cannot make iQIYI better, and the fact that iQIYI's price increases and advance on-demand actions have not made the company's financial situation better in the past show that iQIYI's dilemma is far from being solved by simply collecting more user money.
But why does iQiyi still have to bear a huge user reputation controversy and choose to raise prices again and again? Perhaps iQiyi has no way, membership income as a core income but still has no way to make a profit, it can only choose to "move the knife" on the membership fee, and considering that the paid on-demand mode previously made by various platforms has been cancelled under the user's verbal criticism, the only way is to increase the membership fee.
Objectively speaking, not all users can not accept iQIYI's price increase, the key question is that while the price increase, iQIYI can provide users with better and better content services, so that users feel the value of this money.
This tests iQIYI's ability to continue to output high-quality content in the future, and from the current situation, this is still not optimistic.
Leaving aside the gap between international giants such as Netflix, that is, compared with domestic competitors such as Tencent Video and Youku, iQiyi's ability to continue to export content explosions seems to be questionable, so why should users choose you with a higher price?
It can be seen that iQIYI, which has developed for more than ten years and has long become the first online video platform in China, is still facing challenges at the core competitiveness level, and the gap between it and its competitors is not so large, and a little carelessness may still be picked off by competitors.
There may really be not much time left for iQiyi.