On the evening of January 6, iQIYI's vice president, head of YOH Studio, and BKStore's brand manager Che Che's circle of friends was exposed, and he announced his departure from iQIYI: "A new dream will begin, does not mean that those who insist on the time will be forgotten, five years is very long, worth remembering for a lifetime, grateful for all." ”
This news quickly rushed to the hot search list and attracted attention.
According to public information, after che Che graduated from the Shanghai Theater Academy in 2006, Che Che officially joined SMG, and later joined Canstar Productions in 2011. Good Boy", "Cheers! Beijing Olympics" "Come on! Oriental Angel", "The Whole Family Comes to the Race", "China's Got Talent" as a director, and as a deputy director in "Dance Forest Conference", "Dance Forest Festival", "Dance Forest Competition" and other programs.
Since 2015, Che Che has served as the general director of "Dancing with the Stars", "The Masked Singer King", "Hero of the World", and "The Masked Singer Will Guess Guess".
In 2017, Che Che joined iQIYI 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.
As the chief producer, he also led the production of series of programs such as "China's New Rap", "I Am a Singer-Songwriter", "Trend Partner" and so on.
Netizen: I have watched his programs
Che Che's latest response
After the news came out, Che Che responded on his personal Weibo that a circle of friends that sighed about time was indeed a little embarrassed that so many people paid attention to it. In 2022, I did start some new businesses of my own, about trend IP, about the exploration of content diversification. However, iQiyi's key programs are still in charge as a producer. "New Rap 2022 All-Star Season", I called so many big coffee to compete, I left it alone, it is impossible.
The news also aroused the attention of netizens, some netizens said that che Che produced the program has all seen, worried about whether many variety shows in the future have not to watch.
iQiyi's stock price plunged straight
Evaporation of more than 120 billion in less than a year
In the secondary market, on the evening of the 6th, the US stock market opened, and iQiyi's stock price showed that with the Chinese stock price once rose by more than 4%, and then plunged in a straight line, once fell more than 6%, and then the stock price rebounded again, as of the close of the 7th, iQIYI reported $4.24 / share.
It is worth noting that iQiyi's stock price has fallen by more than 85% in the past 1 year. Falling from nearly $30 per share to around $4 per share, the market capitalization has evaporated more than $19 billion (more than $120 billion) to $3 billion.
At the end of the year, it was exposed to a large layoff! The middle level suffered, and some departments were almost completely cut
It is worth noting that on December 1, 2021, according to Sina Technology news, on the same day, iQIYI began a round of large-scale layoffs, and many laid off employees said that this layoff was the largest round of layoffs in iQIYI's history, and almost all departments were laid off, even profitable departments such as content and smart hardware also had indicators.
The specific circumstances of iQIYI's layoffs are:
The layoffs are to speed up the pace of profitability, focus on content, technology, refined cost management, and flat structure. Therefore, in this layoff, the middle level (director level) has been laid off more, in addition to the elderly, older, and more high-paid employees, most of whom are laid off.
At the same time, iQIYI's budget has shrunk, and the departments that spend money mainly, such as marketing, delivery, channel cooperation, etc., have laid off more than 30% of employees, and the maximum can reach 50%. Employees who have not passed the probationary period are almost all laid off.
iQIYI Research Institute, iQIYI Game Center and other departments have been cut, and short video products will be merged with other products at any time, and only 40% of people can stay. Employees who are laid off will receive N+1 compensation and can leave after handing over their jobs, but the employees of the head of the division and the middle level can stay until the end of the month.
Independent iQiyi Intelligence (with VR and other products) also has a reduction rate, but it is relatively low compared to the spending department. The percentage of layoffs in the content department is around 30%, and many studios are gone. The principle is to retain only low-cost employees for positions of equal responsibility.
When the 21st Century Business Herald reporter asked iQiyi to verify the authenticity of the above news, its relevant person in charge said that there was no response to the outside world.
According to previous annual report data, as of the end of 2020, iQiyi had 7721 employees. If the layoff information is true, at least 1500 people will be laid off this time.
According to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, including iQiyi, Tencent Video, Alibaba Entertainment and other Internet platforms, iQIYI's overall salary is not dominant. And because long videos have not yet found a profit model, the revenue of the entire industry is low in the Internet ecosystem.
Net loss continued to widen
Behind the layoffs is the expansion of iQiyi's net loss.
According to the third quarterly report, iQIYI's revenue for the current period was RMB7.6 billion (US$1.2 billion), an increase of 6% year-on-year, and a net loss of RMB1.7 billion (US$268.4 million), compared with a net loss of RMB1.2 billion in the same period last year.
The reason comes from a lack of growth.
In the current period, iQIYI's membership service revenue was RMB4.3 billion, an increase of 8% year-on-year; online advertising service revenue was RMB1.7 billion, down 10% year-on-year; content distribution revenue was RMB627.1 million, up 60% year-on-year; and other revenue was RMB1 billion, up 3% year-on-year.
The largest source of revenue member business growth, on the back of the decline in the number of users, relying on price increases to win 8% growth rate. As of the end of the third quarter, iQIYI's subscription membership reached 103.6 million. In the same period last year, the figure was 104.8 million.
Late last year, iQIYI launched a new membership pricing scheme. After the price adjustment, the multi-terminal price is unified, divided into six grades, and the pricing of the continuous monthly, monthly card, continuous season, season card, continuous annual and annual pass is 19 yuan, 25 yuan, 58 yuan, 68 yuan, 218 yuan and 248 yuan, respectively.
Objectively, the actual increase in this price is limited. In the past, the price of video members paying through iOS was generally higher than the price of payment through Android/PC, and the price of iQIYI was adjusted to multi-terminal unified pricing. Compared with the price before and after the price increase, the iOS side is basically flat, and the membership fee of each file on the Android/PC side increases by about 25%.
But the number of members is low, and it is difficult to sustain long-term revenue growth.
iQiyi's advertising business, on the other hand, saw its revenue decline.
There are big environmental factors to this. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, China's total retail sales of consumer goods in August increased by 2.5% year-on-year, compared with 8.5% in the previous month, and the growth rate slowed down significantly. August consumption data was significantly lower than expected.
At the same time, the industry of important advertisers continues to fluctuate. In Tencent's case, the slowdown in advertising growth is mainly due to weak advertising demand in the education, insurance and gaming industries, as well as the rectification of Internet advertising.
Baidu also said that in the advertising business, real estate, decoration, education, tourism and other sectors have been negatively affected. At present, education, real estate and other industries are the focus of regulation, and tourism is deeply affected by the epidemic.
"The launch is becoming more cautious and has to look at the rate of return, and there is a lot of pressure." Some executives of the world's top 500 beverage companies told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
iQiyi also faces a special industry background.
"The number of members has declined, and there are reasons for the lack of content. Because of the epidemic, cinema movies do not go to the theater, so they can't get cinema movies. The second is that the TV series has been affected by the epidemic and has been affected by the review and postponed broadcast. The third is that variety shows are affected by advertisers stopping advertising and stopping sponsorship, which also leads to postponement. There are other influences, such as the production of animation and so on. These are the main reasons for the decline in the number of users, which is the number of members. iQIYI founder and CEO Gong Yu said at the beginning of the year.
In addition, iQIYI's cost control is limited. In the third quarter, the cost of revenue was 7 billion yuan, an increase of 10% year-on-year. Among them, the content cost was 5.3 billion yuan, an increase of 13% year-on-year.
As a result, iQiyi is in a reverse cycle where the profit model is not opened and the cost is rising, and layoffs have become a mandatory topic.
Just last month announced another increase in membership prices
In the context of the widening loss, iQiyi released the news that it will update the subscription price of gold VIP members from December 16, 2021.
After the price increase, the gold VIP ordinary monthly subscription members were raised from 25 yuan to 30 yuan, an increase of 20%; the continuous monthly subscription was raised from 19 yuan to 22 yuan, an increase of 16%; the ordinary season card members were raised from 68 yuan to 78 yuan, an increase of 15%; the continuous package season was raised from 58 yuan to 63 yuan, an increase of 9%; the price of ordinary and consecutive annual card members remained unchanged, 248 yuan and 218 yuan respectively. Star Diamond membership prices remained stable.
At the end of last year, iQIYI has launched a round of membership pricing schemes.
In the past, the price of video members paying through iOS was generally higher than the price paid through Android/PC, and the price of iQIYI in the last round was adjusted to multi-terminal unified pricing. Compared with the price before and after the price increase, the iOS side is basically flat, and the membership fee of each file on the Android/PC side increases by about 25%.
Source丨Public information, 21st Century Business Herald (Reporter: He Hongyuan)
This issue is edited by Li Yutong