Text/Ball Review/Zi Yang Proofreader/ZhiQiu
As a vertical head information platform in the automotive industry, the authority and professionalism of Autohome has been recognized by the majority of car users, and at its peak, the number of monthly active users of the Autohome platform reached 64.03 million, ranking first in the industry.
Nowadays, Autohome has gradually begun to decline, and in the past 2021, the shrinking market value and declining revenue have been plaguing Autohome.
Net profit plummeted
On February 24, Autohome announced its fourth quarter 2021 revenue report, and the data showed that the company's revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021 reached 1.693 billion yuan.
In terms of profit, Autohome only recorded 272 million yuan in the fourth quarter, down nearly 77% year-on-year.
It can be seen that the development of Autohome in the auto market is not good, and throughout the company's performance in the entire quarters of 2021, it shows a trend of high and low, because, in addition to the first quarter of Autohome to achieve revenue growth, in the second and third quarters, its revenue growth rate is declining.
In addition, Autohome's continued sluggish revenue performance has made the capital market question Autohome. According to the data released by the financial information platform, as of February 25, the stock price of Autohome was only 24.14 US dollars / share, compared with the highest point of 146.82 US dollars / share in 2021, the company's market value directly shrank by more than 80%.
Not only that, previously, Autohome was also excluded by the Hang Seng Technology Index, which is enough to see its current predicament.
So, why has Autohome's revenue plummeted? According to the reasons given by Autohome officially, it is mainly because of the continuous shortage of global chips in 2021, the rise in the price of automotive raw materials, and the adjustment of advertising budgets by major automakers in order to save costs, which has led to a sharp decline in the media service revenue of one of the three main revenue segments of Autohome.
In the author's opinion, the poor environment of the automobile market will indeed have many impacts on the revenue of Autohome, after all, all revenue business sectors carried out by Autohome must rely on automobile manufacturers and dealers.
However, the problems in the auto home itself are also an important reason for the decline in its revenue. As we all know, the rise of the short video industry, some consumers with car purchase needs began to get used to looking for car big V to understand the car, and the car home as a car vertical media, but did not follow the trend of the short video era, still rely on forums, graphics and other ways to promote car products, which means that under the impact of short video, the car home will no longer be the first choice for users to understand the car channel.
In contrast, automotive media such as Chedi and Yiche took the lead in realizing the opportunities brought by short videos, and they began to consciously tilt their resources to videos and live broadcasts.
According to the "Mobile Internet Industry Research Report for the Third Quarter of 2021" released by Aurora, the user growth of Autohome in the third quarter was only 9.2 million, while the car emperor had a user growth of 13.87 million.
The slowdown in user growth means that the overall traffic of Autohome is also weakening, whether it is auto manufacturers or dealers, in advertising or other business, need to be cautious about cooperating with Autohome.
Nowadays, in the field of media in the automotive industry, autohome has been fully inferior, and the competitive advantage is no longer obvious.
It is worth mentioning that the decline of auto home has also affected its own employees, and some insiders have posted in the pulse that at the end of 2021, the decline of autohome has reached 20%.
Write to the end
Compared with the peak period, the auto home is indeed declining, but fortunately, it is also actively reforming, and has begun to extend to short videos, live broadcasts and so on.
The author believes that the gap between the auto home and its peers is not very large, and its realization of overtaking is not impossible, of course, this must be based on the fact that the auto home has a fast enough catch-up pace.
So, do you think The Autohome can get back to the top?