Douyu's 2021 Q4 gross profit increased by 34.3% year-on-year, and its operating efficiency continued to improve

According to the U.S. Stock Research Agency, on March 16, 2022, Beijing time, Douyu announced unaudited financial reports for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021. According to the report, the total revenue of Douyu in 2021 was 9.165 billion yuan, of which the total revenue of Douyu in the fourth quarter was 2.328 billion yuan, an increase of 2.6% year-on-year; the gross profit reached 245 million yuan, an increase of 34.3% year-on-year.

Under the background of challenges, the scale of Douyu users in 2021 is still steadily improving, showing the development resilience of the Douyu platform. In the fourth quarter, Douyu Mobile's MAU (quarterly average monthly active users) increased from 58.2 million in the same period of 2020 to 62.4 million, an increase of 7.2%. At the same time, the number of paying users also increased to 7.3 million in the quarter from 7.2 million in the previous quarter.

Chen Shaojie, founder and CEO of Douyu, said: "2021 is a challenging year, in this macro environment, we adhere to the implementation of the 'game-centric diversified content ecological platform' strategy, focus on the richness of game categories and high-quality content investment, and strengthen the refined operation of games, to ensure the company's core operating data in the fourth quarter continued growth." Next, Douyu will continue to maintain the leading position in the domestic game live broadcasting industry and explore new growth points through rich content forms such as live broadcasts, videos, graphics and communities, as well as innovative interactive operation methods. ”

Mobile MAU 62.4 million reached a new high, and operational efficiency continued to improve

In 2021, Douyu continued to deepen the content construction around e-sports and non-e-sports games, and built a complete content system and content reserves integrating live broadcasts, videos, graphics and communities, and also obtained a solid user base disk on this basis. In the fourth quarter, Douyu Mobile MAU increased by 7.2% year-on-year to 62.4 million, and the number of paying users also increased from 7.2 million in the previous quarter to 7.3 million.

While MAU continued to grow, douyu live broadcast revenue also increased steadily, driving the simultaneous growth of the platform's total revenue. According to the financial report, the total revenue of Douyu in the fourth quarter was 2.328 billion yuan, an increase of 2.6% year-on-year, of which the live broadcast revenue was 2.209 billion yuan, an increase of 6.7% year-on-year. It is worth noting that some of the operating costs of Douyu in the quarter were well controlled, and the revenue share, content costs and bandwidth costs were 1.847 billion yuan and 168 million yuan, respectively, which decreased to varying degrees compared with the same period last year. In the quarter, the gross profit of Douyu increased by 34.3% year-on-year to 245 million yuan.

High-quality content continues to be enriched, and the output ability of high-quality self-made content is outstanding

High-quality content is the key to attracting and retaining users. In the fourth quarter, Douyu gave full play to the advantages of the professional game live broadcasting platform in content production and event operation, and increased its investment in self-made event content in addition to the live broadcast of traditional official popular events such as the League of Legends S11 Global Finals and the 2021KPL Autumn Tournament. According to the data, in the fourth quarter alone, Douyu launched more than 110 homemade events. According to incomplete statistics, Douyu has launched more than 300 self-made events in 2021, an increase of 60% over the whole year of 2020.

At the beginning of June, Douyu officially hosted the 2021 "League of Legends Mobile Game" National Competition Platform Cooperation Competition Douyu Masters, and the pre-registration stage won the attention of major e-sports clubs in the industry, and finally the successful participation teams of the event reached 96 teams, refreshing the record number of teams participating in the platform. The strongest lineup in history also quickly gained the pursuit of gamers, and finally the event brought more than 10 million viewers to Douyu, and the highest viewing popularity of the single-day event exceeded 6 million. By hosting this event, Douyu has tapped and cultivated a large number of potential professional players, and has been highly recognized by the official and clubs of the League of Legends event.

During the event gap period, Douyu has also always adhered to diversified innovation, and the peripheral derivative programs launched around the event and the PGC variety show created around the anchor IP have significantly improved the number, quality, user attention, and industry influence of the program. In the fourth quarter, Douyu launched more than ten PGC variety shows such as the immersive interactive secret room entertainment show "The Great Escape at the Speed of Lights", the indoor interactive game reality show "E Up to Explore the Class", and the comprehensive entertainment talk show "Mini Planet", and the quality of the program reached the level of satellite TV production, which was sought after and loved by users.

In 2021, Douyu also supported anchors, manufacturers, game media, and contracted UP masters to produce PUGC (professional user production content) video content through various incentive policies, and the number of original video contributions on the platform has always maintained strong growth. In the fourth quarter alone, the average daily submission volume of the platform doubled from the previous quarter, and in 2021, it increased by 3.6 times compared with 2020. While increasing the number of content, the quality of Douyu's videos is also improving simultaneously, and the number of videos played on the platform exceeding 30% has increased by 56% month-on-month.

The effect of the fine operation strategy is obvious, and the community activity has increased significantly

In the fourth quarter, the personalized and fine operation strategy adopted by Douyu for different game partitions had obvious results, and Douyu and game manufacturers carried out in-depth linkage content cooperation and operation linkage, and created a new tour zone ecology from the direction of intermodal transportation, anchor, content, function, and community atmosphere construction.

In the "League of Legends Mobile Game" community, Douyu gave full play to the advantages of the industry's most high-quality "League of Legends" anchor and the strongest "League of Legends" operation experience, launched many live broadcasts, video programs and graphic strategies, and carried out a series of prop welfare activities, which were supported by gamers. At the "'Jinx' Night" live broadcast event jointly organized by Douyu and the "League of Legends Mobile Game", game spokesperson Angelababy made a live debut. According to statistics, the live broadcast was viewed more than 17 million times, and the peak popularity once exceeded 6.7 million.

In the "Magic Tower" game area of the recent fire, starting from the internal testing period, the number of anchors and the quality of anchors on the Douyu platform are leading the whole network, which not only supports and incubates the most influential anchor garigari of the whole network, but also makes full use of the platform's unique resources and distribution capabilities to provide game user conversion and deeply empower game manufacturers.

At the same time, in order to further stimulate the vitality of the community, Douyu focuses on topic operation as the core and promotes the release enthusiasm of UGC (User-Produced Content). In the fourth quarter, Douyu planned many operational topics and activities around events, games, anchors, and social hotspots. For example, during the "The Internet" Invitational Tournament held by Zard, the head anchor of Douyu DOTA2, the platform built and operated a number of topics around the event, with a cumulative reading volume of more than 20 million and an output of more than 5,000 graphic content.

In line with the operation strategy of the game community, Douyu has also been optimized and upgraded in terms of product functions. In the fourth quarter, Douyu launched the "Live Room Hot Discussion Channel" function, which aggregates fresh anchor hotspots, game hotspots and other hot topics in the live broadcast room page, which not only promotes the proportion of community and video content consumption within the platform, but also enhances the user experience and community atmosphere.

Overall, after a year of strategic upgrading, Douyu's content ecology has become more healthy and perfect, and the community activity and user stickiness have been significantly enhanced, laying a solid foundation for continuous exploration and commercialization and improving the overall monetization ability of the platform. Cao Hao, vice president of finance of Douyu, said, "In the future, Douyu will continue to upgrade the content linkage of live broadcasts, videos, graphics and communities, and continue to strengthen investment in the content side and investment in research and development. At the same time, we will continue to explore new monetization methods in addition to live rewards, improve the efficiency of monetization, and strive to bring long-term value to shareholders. ”