On March 16, Douyu announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021. The financial report shows that the total revenue of Douyu in 2021 is 9.165 billion yuan, of which the total revenue of Douyu in the fourth quarter is 2.328 billion yuan, an increase of 2.6% year-on-year; Gross profit reached RMB245 million, an increase of 34.3% year-on-year.
In terms of user data, the Q4 Douyu mobile terminal MAU reached 62.4 million, an increase of 7.2% year-on-year, the paid users were 7.3 million, and the quarterly average ARPPU was 305 yuan, an increase of 11.7% year-on-year.
Chen Shaojie, founder and CEO of Douyu, said, "Douyu will continue to maintain its leading position in the domestic game live broadcasting industry and explore new growth points through rich content forms such as live broadcasting, video, graphics and community, as well as innovative and interactive operation methods. ”
Explore new growth points, this is the tone set by Douyu for the future, behind this is the game live broadcast after 8 years of development from 2014 to the present, whether it is user scale, revenue data, traffic growth, etc. have reached a critical point, the industry to the urgent need to break the ceiling of the time.
The answer given by Douyu to this question is: from a simple game live broadcast platform to a game content platform, the content and the game are deeply bound.
From holding high to taking the lead in transformation
Since the establishment and development of Douyu in 2014, Douyu has always adopted the attitude of holding high and playing high, signing anchors at high prices and signing various events at high prices.
In that environment at that time, in fact, there was no so-called "signing" relationship between the live broadcast platform and the anchor, the anchor did not have a fixed salary given by the platform, and everything needed to rely on the user's gift tip, or pour to the Taobao store to obtain revenue.
The emergence of Douyu can be said to have completely broken the entire game live broadcast ecology at that time, the anchor began to become an important resource of major live broadcast platforms, and the event became a section that must be invested. It was also at that time that the game live streaming industry began to take the fast lane in this part of China.
In a sense, Douyu has accelerated the development of the game live broadcast track, thus becoming an important content section in the current Chinese Internet environment.
However, all this changed last year, in terms of events, Douyu still bought many key events such as League of Legends S11, Dota2 Ti10, and domestic KPL, PEL and other events in Q4 last year.
However, it is worth noting that Douyu has changed its investment in key events since Q4 last year, no longer sweeping all key events on the market, but beginning to become selective to buy events.
For the douyu who originally opened the game live track to buy people, buy events and accumulate traffic, this is a huge change, overnight, the original mode to the climax of the douyu, no longer play.
For this change, in the conference call after the release of the earnings report, Douyu replied, "The growth of traffic and revenue for large events has been far lower than the growth of its price, and with the precipitation of event users, it is difficult to rely on large events to drive traffic growth, so Douyu will adopt the strategy of 'selectively purchasing event copyrights' in the future." ”
This answer means that the model that has mainly driven the growth of game live broadcasting in the past eight years may have peaked.
Douyu has once again taken the lead in making its own judgment in the industry.
With diversified content, drive traffic growth
Last time, Douyu proved itself right, the first to adopt the strategy of buying people and buying events, which proved its correctness from the current industry-leading MAU and paid users of Douyu.
Is the judgment of the fighting fish still correct this time? This is a question we cannot answer, and we can only leave time to answer. The answer is that along with selective buying events, Douyu is looking for another path to traffic and revenue growth.
In the conference call, Douyu mentioned two aspects, one is the diversification of content, and the other is a deeper and closer cooperation with game manufacturers.
The diversification of content can directly correspond to the growth of traffic, and the deeper and closer cooperation with game manufacturers can be regarded as douyu starting to get deeper involved in the game industry.
Among them, in terms of content diversification, based on short and medium-sized videos, communities, and graphics, it drives the growth of medium and mild users, which is the strategy that Douyu will start from 2021.
In December 2020, Douyu made adjustments on the product side, mentioning "community" and "video" to the same position as "live broadcast", so as to constitute the three major business directions that go hand in hand.
The logic lies in the fact that there are significant differences in the scenario between video users and live users, with game streaming users being more hardcore and the number of video users being larger. Taking events as an example, watching a full esports match usually takes 1-3 hours for a whole period of time, which is a certain threshold for many users.
However, short videos present content to users in the form of entertainment, gaining a wider user base for the entire game content industry, and some of this group has been converted into game live users.
The same logic lies in the medium video, if the short video is basically biased towards entertainment, then the medium video is more focused on the event operation highlights, funny scenes, wonderful reviews, the duration is usually about 1-30 minutes.
For those who can't come up with a full time clip to watch the event and the host live, the medium video is the most important channel for them to keep an eye on the event and the host.
"At present, live broadcasting has transitioned from simple game live broadcasting to the competition of the entire game content, thereby increasing the stage of medium and light users, and the community, video, and graphics can better meet the diversified needs of users", this is Douyu's answer.
The data shows that the average daily submission volume of video content on the Q4 Douyu platform increased by more than 100% month-on-month, and the community topic production gave birth to several tens of millions of hot topics.
Go deep into the gaming space and open up to a larger market
While seeking to bring traffic growth from the change of content form, Douyu is also doing another thing, working closely with the release of games or new games.
Douyu has given three iconic cases in this direction in the past year, "Forever Destroyed", "League of Legends Mobile Game" and "Magic Tower".
In the process of launching these three products, Douyu has carried out close cooperation with game manufacturers.
In terms of the operation of "Magic Tower", the joint manufacturers incubated the head anchor, built a game zone, and carried out targeted content operations, and the results were displayed, and the head anchor garigari of the special area with the influence of the whole network was hatched. In the first month of the game public beta, the top 10 of the anchor comprehensive strength list accounted for 6, the top 10 of the popularity list accounted for 7, and the top 10 of the income gift list accounted for 6. Community-created #Magic Tower Aida Star First Experience #Game Topic Read 1500W+.
In terms of "League of Legends Mobile Game", through events, activities, community topics and other ways to promote user stickiness and activity.
For example, in June last year, Douyu held the 2021 "League of Legends Mobile Game" National Competition Platform Cooperation Competition Douyu Masters, the number of club registrations and participation was the first in the whole platform, the final number of participating teams was 96, the total number of spectators of the event exceeded 1000W, and the highest viewing popularity of single-day events exceeded 600w.
The LOL mobile game "Jinx Night" angelababy exclusive event: 1700W+ clicks in the live broadcast room, 40W+ bullet screens, 10 Weibo-related topics, and 350 million topics read; The full platform exposure is 400 million+, and the total interaction volume is 300W+.
In addition to these two products that have their own traffic at the beginning of the launch, what is more classic is the operation of Douyu on the launch of "Forever Doom".
After the preliminary tests determined the live broadcast potential of "Forever Doom", Douyu directly bet on a large number of resources to start boosting the product after the product was launched, including the layout of multiple dimensions such as anchors, guilds, events, and communities, which cannot be seen on other platforms.
Filter the anchors suitable for this game through multiple channels such as light events and host reserve pools in the console section; Organize and plan face-to-face activities, introduce KOLs, produce video raiders and other ways to enrich community content, such as head anchor PDD, YYF, etc. from the testing stage to create content for "Forever Doom", flag waving, female stream, Yinzi and other anchors of the in-depth experience and recommendation of the game makes players more confident in the game.
After the game was officially launched, Douyu also held events such as "Cai Dog Cup" and "Shark Cup" for the first time, helping the game to create momentum in the form of e-sports events more quickly, giving birth to many interesting terriers, and instantly gaining the attention of a large number of players.
According to the data, the game in the Steam Demo test stage, the popularity of Douyu has been maintained at about 20 million for a long time, and the highest popularity has reached 40 million, and when the game is officially launched, it has a considerable degree of user base, which is a hit. In addition, the hottest "Electronics Factory Sanjie" terrier of "Forever Doomed" is also from Douyu, which provides a great boost for the spread of the game's popularity.
The success of "Forever Doom" proves that Douyu can deeply dabble in the early cultivation of new games and the release stage after the official launch, and develop deeper partnerships with game manufacturers.
Such capabilities will help Douyu open up a new situation in terms of revenue and traffic, and bring the entire game live broadcast track into a broader market.
summary:
After 8 years of development, with the emergence of the market ceiling, Douyu began to take the lead in opening the road of transformation, from content form to market strategy to live broadcast gameplay, Douyu is changing.
As Douyu executives finally mentioned in the conference call, "As a content platform, content construction and the transformation of users' cognition of the platform require a long-term accumulation process, and with the steady advancement of various items, it is expected that the proportion of non-traditional games will increase." ”
After leading the trend once, it is worth looking forward to whether the fighting fish can lead the trend again.