On the evening of January 6, Che Che, vice president of iQIYI, head of YOH Studio and head of BKStore, announced his resignation. He is a well-known director who has led the production of popular programs such as "China New Rap", "I Am a Singer-Songwriter", and "Trend Partner".
Affected by this, iQiyi's stock price directly plummeted by more than 6 points. Overnight in the US stock market, iQiyi's stock price first rose more than 4% with the Chinese stock, then plunged straight, once fell more than 6%, and then the stock price rebounded again. As of the close, iQiyi was up nearly 1.2 percent, but its market capitalization was only $3.3 billion.
IQiyi is desperate
The news of Che Che's departure is undoubtedly worse for iQiyi, which has been in a hurry recently.
In December last year, iQiyi was exposed to large-scale layoffs, with a layoff ratio of between 20% and 40%. In addition, the financial report shows that iQiyi has been losing money for 11 consecutive years, and lost 2.6 million users in the third quarter.
On November 17, 2021, iQIYI released its third quarterly report, with revenue up 6% year-on-year and net loss widening by 41.6% year-on-year. Gong Yu, CEO of iQIYI, said that mainly due to the new crown epidemic, the impact on brand advertising is very large.
In addition, iQIYI's subscription membership reached 103.6 million in the third quarter, compared with the second quarter, the loss of subscribers was 2.6 million.
The layoffs have also attracted great attention from the market. It is reported that the general situation of iQIYI's layoffs is that the middle -level (director level), the director of the department, the elderly, the elderly, the high salary of the employees are mostly laid off, and the spending departments such as marketing, delivery, channel cooperation and other layoffs are more than 30%, the most can reach 50%. Employees who have not passed the probationary period are almost all laid off.
Many veteran employees called this layoff "the largest layoff in iQiyi's history" and said that this round of layoffs is not the end, and many people will be laid off around the Spring Festival. If the layoff information is true, at least 1500 people will be laid off this time.
The market also questioned iQIYI, and even some people suspected that Che Che's departure was the fuse, and iQiyi may really be unable to hold on.
In this regard, Che Che responded urgently late at night that he had indeed started some new careers of his own, exploring the trend OF IP and content diversification, but iQiyi's key programs were still in charge as a producer.
It is reported that Che Che joined iQIYI in 2017 and established YOH Young Tiger Studio, which is committed to creating youth pop culture, and has produced the phenomenon-level rap music reality show "China Has Hip Hop" and the street dance culture promotion program "Blood Street Dance Troupe", which has attracted wide attention.
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