On December 29, in the roundtable dialogue of the opening forum of the 2021 China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, Gong Yu, CEO of iQIYI, proposed that the business model of Internet movies must be innovative, and the original model has a ceiling, and more single-film on-demand can be tried. Gong Yu also said, "The ticket price of online movies has to rise, 6 yuan is too low!" ”
Previously, Gong Yu also mentioned that the membership price is generally low at present, saying that "the membership price is too low to cover the content cost." iQiyi also publicly stated that the subscription price of video platform members has been low, and this phenomenon has affected the healthy development of the industry.
In the middle of this month, iQiyi announced a membership fee increase. The price increase is mainly for monthly fees and seasonal cards. The continuous monthly subscription is raised from 19 yuan to 22 yuan, the continuous season card is raised from 58 yuan to 63 yuan, the ordinary monthly card is raised from 25 yuan to 30 yuan, and the ordinary season card is raised from 68 yuan to 78 yuan.
iQIYI said that in order to establish a more benign industrial ecology, let excellent content producers have returns, and ultimately provide more and better content for members, it decided to adjust the price of members.
Behind iQiyi's continuous release of price increase intentions is that the "break-even line" pressed on the shoulders is becoming more and more difficult to bear. In 2020, iQiyi's explosive models were frequent, achieving revenue of 29.7 billion yuan for the whole year, but at the same time, the cost of revenue also reached 27.9 billion yuan, almost completely "swallowing" revenue. Among them, the cost of content self-production and copyright procurement is as high as 20.3 billion yuan, accounting for more than 70% of the cost of revenue.
On the one hand, costs are rising, and on the other hand, revenue hits the ceiling. According to the financial report, the number of iQiyi paid members has fallen into a relatively stagnant or even slightly declining state, maintaining a scale of about 100 million for a long time. Following the abandonment of the controversial "advanced on demand", the increase in membership or on-demand prices has become one of the few ways out for iQIYI.
iQiyi's U.S. stocks opened more than 6 percent on December 29, closing at $4.03, a record low.
Image source: iQiyi
![iQiyi took the initiative not to roll up: it will achieve operational breakeven within this year[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)