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"Friends, you can now watch the "Blessing of heavenly officials" anime on Bilibili Comics!" "Will the comics be available in English print?" Online etc..." "When will the Arabic version be available online?" ”
Under the official tweet of Bilibili Comics, overseas readers showed great interest in the national style comics of Bilibili (referred to as "B Station").
After Station B went to sea at the end of 2020 and launched the overseas official website Bilibili, less than half a year later, it launched the comic product Bilibili Comics overseas. In terms of games, many games of Station B have also been reversed and reached the top of the Japanese and Korean markets.
Station B goes to sea and brings the "Chinese characteristics" two-dimensional element to Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, can it conquer overseas users? Today, when the loss of Station B is becoming more and more serious, to what extent will the overseas business drive the growth of Station B?
This is a must-answer question for station B that intends to go to sea.
Focus on the quadratic element
Zhixiang Network combed and found that the current B station out of the sea products, including the main station out of the sea and comics and games of the three blocks, mainly in several major southeast Asian countries and Japan and South Korea online, the content, are inherited it in the domestic tried and tested two-dimensional style.
In terms of the main site, including bilibili mobile applications (blue logo) and web bilibili.tv; in terms of comics, B station has also laid out bilibili comics applications and web bilibilicomics.com; in terms of games, B station mainly focuses on the Japanese and Korean markets, and has launched some popular products.
At the end of 2020, the bilibili mobile terminal application was launched in Thailand and Malaysia, when the application supported users to watch free popular anime, including many original copyright anime; clear images, no ads; embedded in multiple languages; and offline viewing anytime, anywhere.
Sensor Tower data show that after more than a year of going to sea, the bilibili application has been launched in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia, with more than 10 million downloads, and the cumulative number of downloads in January 2022 exceeded 4 million, which is currently the most popular in Indonesia. However, Zhixiang found that the app's current name in Indonesia and Malaysia has been changed to Status, and the icon is consistent with Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam.
A number of people in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and other countries shared the local page of bilibili application to Zhixiang.com, which showed that there are many Japanese comics, national comics, Thai dramas, Korean dramas and other content on the bilibili/Bstation platform, and some UGC form content has also appeared.
Its overseas official website bilibili.tv is currently only open to some countries, such as the United States, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and so on. SimilarWeb shows that in January 2022, bilibili.tv traffic (desktop & mobile, global) was 13.9 million, an increase of 94.70% month-on-month. Among them, the fastest growth in the United States, the rate of up to 149.4%.
Source: SimilarWeb
In terms of marketing channels, bilibili.tv received traffic from searches (46.75%) and direct clicks (44.71%), and advertising channels were underutilized. Explains that most of the current website users are "tap water".
In terms of comics, in April 2021, the Bilibili Comics application was launched, and the application introduction showed that for the online webcomic reader, the application provides more than 300 original anime localized by professional translators, with high picture quality, exquisite picture, support download and offline reading, ensure update speed, and never miss any plot.
According to SensorTower, Bilibili Comics is available in more than 100 countries around the world and currently has more than 5 million cumulative downloads, making it the most popular in India. In January 2022, Bilibili Comics was downloaded 2 million times worldwide, which shows that it is in a period of accelerated promotion.
Relevant data can also provide support. According to App Growing Global data, as of November 16, 2021 to February 13, 2022, Bilibili Comics has placed 10,979 creatives overseas, mainly in Asia, covering videos and stickers.
During this time, it ran a total of 9,771 creatives in Southeast Asia, mainly in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, with recent increased coverage in the Philippines and Malaysia. In addition, Bilibili is also stepping up its launch in India. While its web terminal (bilibilicomics.com) currently offers Chinese Simplified, English and Indonesian, SimilarWeb shows that it has 5.8 million monthly visits, mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines.
It can be seen that Indonesia and the Philippines are currently the markets where Bilibili Comics focuses on betting. As the most populous country in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is the first choice for many products to go to sea. Previously, a pan-entertainment overseas industry insider told Zhixiang Network that the Philippines is an English-speaking country, and the language environment is not as complex as other countries in Southeast Asia, so it is easier to cut in, and the population reaches 110 million people, second only to Indonesia, the most populous country in Southeast Asia.
In terms of games, when it was listed, Station B was once considered a game company, and its game business contributed as much as 70% to revenue, and under the accumulation of up to 8 years, Station B game business also began to export overseas.
Japan and South Korea are an important market for the reverse output of its quadratic games. Among them, "Ark Instruction", "Horcrux Academy", "Heavy War Ji" have all made good achievements in the Japanese market, and "Heavy War Ji" has also won the Korean market.
Going to sea, can you win back a round?
Station B accelerates out to sea and has its own internal logic.
Station B's 2021 Q3 financial report shows that the company's revenue in the quarter was 5.21 billion yuan, an increase of 61% year-on-year; the monthly active users were 267 million, an increase of 35% year-on-year, and the average daily use time of users increased to 88 minutes, a new high.
For the listed company of Station B, these eye-catching data are also difficult to hide the dismal revenue. According to the financial report, the net loss of Station B in the quarter reached 2.686 billion yuan, an increase of 144% year-on-year, significantly exceeding market expectations. At the same time, in the first three quarters of 2021, Station B lost a total of 4.704 billion yuan, which was larger than iQiyi's loss.
Anime going to sea is indeed the advantage of Station B. In June 2020, Station B CEO Chen Rui said that since the establishment of Station B, more than 1680 animation works with regular copyright have been bought overseas, in addition, Station B also released 49 animations at the "2021-2022 National Animation Works Conference", including "Three-Body", "Wushan Five Elements • Rhino river Fantasy Purple Forest", "Blessing of Heavenly Officials 2" and many other popular animations. Nowadays, Station B has also acquired well-known animation studios such as "Youyi Qi". All of the above are "filled with ammunition" for their anime stocks.
Station B has indeed made good achievements overseas. In February 2021, App Annie released a leap in the revenue of Chinese manufacturers going to sea, showing that although the Thai version of Station B was still short at that time, it quickly climbed into the top 20 of the App Annie overseas application revenue leap list, ranking 6th.
In terms of games, the previously released "2021 China Game Industry Report" shows that in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's game market was 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 17.826 billion yuan over last year, an increase of 6.4% year-on-year, but the growth rate was nearly 15% smaller than that of 2020. In terms of user growth, the scale of domestic game users was 666 million, an increase of 0.22% year-on-year, and the number of users was gradually saturated.
In terms of policy supervision, the protection of minors has been increased in China, and the game market is limited. The game version number one is difficult to find, and going overseas is a survival move for game companies. At present, even the game giant Tencent is accelerating the internationalization of the game business.
In the past, the game revenue of station B was mainly through game intermodal transportation and overseas agents, and now, as the voice of channel providers has shifted to game manufacturers, it is becoming more and more unrealistic to rely on game agents to achieve revenue growth, and the change in game revenue of station B reflects this.
In the second quarter of 2021, the publicity of B-station games was unprecedented, but its mobile game revenue showed a slight decline year-on-year, and in the third quarter of that year, it was worse. Since then, Station B has begun the stage of self-development of the game, but it has not yet set off any splash.
Zhixiang Network learned that although the games released in Japan and South Korea in the past have achieved excellent results, Station B does not seem to have shown high enthusiasm for the game to go to sea.
In May 2021, Station B relied on games such as "Ark Instruction", "Horcrux Academy", and "Reloaded Warrior" to reach the list of overseas publishers. But since then, it has disappeared into the list and is difficult to find.
Looking at the B station going to sea business, it is still in a very early stage, mainly the simple grafting of domestic websites and self-made animations, and has not yet formed a unique way of playing the system, only in terms of comics, there is a separate launch of the App, in the country to help B station to obtain the user's UGC content, because there is a very high cultural and localization threshold, and has not developed. So the question is, relying only on the second dimension, can Station B successfully break into the international market?