10 years ago, a video made Momo labeled "XX artifact" and deeply bound the two words. To this day, in the eyes of many people, Momo is still at the bottom of the "chain of contempt", known as the main "soul social" soul of the soul of the soul, if you have time to flip over, you can see a girl introduce themselves like this, "Really find friends, XX to Momo ..."
On March 24, Momo, which was renamed Asumen Group, released its 2021 financial report, with revenue and net profit both declining, of which revenue was 14.575 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.98%, due to the impairment loss of goodwill and intangible assets of 4.397 billion yuan, resulting in a net loss of 2.92 billion yuan, even excluding this factor, Momo's net profit was 2.04 billion yuan, which was also about 3% less than the same period last year.
The decline in Momo's performance is related to the insufficient contribution of the two core sectors. Among them, the live broadcast business, which is the pillar of revenue, although it provided Momo with 8.37 billion yuan in revenue, accounting for 57% of the total revenue, but fell by 13% year-on-year. As the social sector of Momo's basic disk, its monthly active users have also stagnated for three consecutive years after breaking through the hundreds of millions of marks.
All kinds of adverse effects have caused Momo's stock price to fall again. As of the latest close on March 25, Momo's market value remained at only $1.407 billion. Since 2020, Momo's stock price has fallen for three consecutive years, losing nearly 78%. In this way, founder Tang Yan seems to be a little farther away from his dream of joining the world's top rich game.
01, the scale of users stagnated
Some people say that from the idols that a person likes, you can see his personality and characteristics. Tang Yan admires Sean Parker, one of facebook's founders, and the reason given is also very simple, "He changed the world while making a girl." ”
Compared to Sean Parker, what Tang Yan is doing is more to provide a platform for this. Whether it is the initial positioning of strangers to make friends, or the live broadcast business that is currently the pillar of revenue, its core is to meet the original impulse brought about by the "hormones" of many people.
In recent years, controversy surrounding Momo has been emerging.
Not long ago, a netizen who claimed to be "Cheated of 2900 yuan a night on a Momo blind date" once again pushed Momo into the spotlight. This is a new model that skillfully combines live broadcasting and dating, mainly using blind dates as a gimmick to continuously stimulate users to tip and obtain income. On the black cat complaint platform, Momo's related complaints have reached tens of thousands, the largest number of which is "suspected of inducing consumption", and words such as "blind date" and "cheating gifts" are not uncommon.
(Momo video screenshot)
According to industry insiders, the signing of the contract between Momo and the trade union (a large cooperative operation company, which can be understood as an agent) is divided into 6:4, and the remaining 40% is divided by the union and the anchor according to 7:3. There is also a saying that Momo's official draw is generally around 50%. Regardless of the specific percentages, it is certain that between the platform, the anchor and the trade union, a community of interests has been formed in essence, and a considerable part of Momo's income sources come from this.
But can such an income model really last for a long time?
Just at this year's 3.15 party, the "chaos of online sky-high rewards" was named, and the article "Eradicating the chaos of live rewards should cut to the "seven inches" of the platform" also clearly stated that live rewards are chaotic, and the management of the platform is an important reason. During this year's two sessions, some people suggested "directly turning off the platform tipping function", which has received a lot of support on social platforms. These are undoubtedly a red flag for Momo, who wears a social cloak but makes money by live broadcasting.
Momo not only has internal worries, but also does not lack external troubles.
Nowadays, making friends in NetEase Cloud, moving videos at Station B, and bringing goods on Zhihu are not new. Behind this phenomenon is the continuous "breaking of the circle" of capital, tang Yan renamed Momo to Zhiwen Group in August 2021, and said that the original name can no longer cover Momo's overall business, which also proves this. However, as the major platforms absorb more users, they are all working towards "breaking the circle", and the tentacles of interests are intertwined, and they are "rolled".
According to the CCB International Research Report, fierce competition has always been the theme of China's live broadcasting industry, and new platforms often provide higher revenue sharing to anchors to promote live broadcasting business. Among them, the proportion of B station to anchors was once much higher than the industry average of 55 to 65%. In this regard, old players such as Momo have also been forced to increase the proportion to retain performers, which will undoubtedly drag down the overall profitability of the industry. According to the information disclosed by Momo in the annual report, the decrease in net profit is indeed related to this.
In addition, the social field, which is the foundation of Momo, has long lost its growth momentum.
Ai Media Consulting data shows that the growth rate of China's stranger social users slowed down after reaching 649 million in 2020, and it is expected that 700 to 800 million will be the ceiling of the industry. This can also be seen from Momo's annual report. At the end of 2021, the monthly active users of Momo's main app were 114.1 million, compared to 113.8 million in the same period last year, compared to 114.5 million in 2019. This means that Momo's monthly active users have stagnated for three consecutive years.
In addition, in addition to the user's paid permission to open, how to effectively achieve profitability in the social field of strangers is also a difficult problem to solve. Tang Yan once admitted in an interview, "We were listed when the curve was the most beautiful, and then the Internet dividend disappeared, the river did not enter the water, and the product could not make a breakthrough, and the overall reached a bottleneck period." ”
02, the glory of the last outlet is no longer there
"Standing on the outlet, pigs can fly", as the live broadcast industry of the last outlet, it has brought countless flowers and applause to Tang Yan, who seized the opportunity. And, of course, the money he likes.
In 2016, the live broadcasting industry blew a wind, the relevant platforms bloomed, with the rise of YY, Douyu, Huya, etc., the national live broadcast platform exceeded 300, only in 2016 involved in the financing amount of tens of billions, this year is also known as the "first year of mobile live broadcasting". At the end of 2015, Momo opened the Reds Live Broadcast to test the waters, and in April 2016, it was fully upgraded to enter the army.
Tang Yan's bet successfully made Momo "break the circle" and brought sustained growth to revenue and net profit. In 2016, Momo's revenue soared 313% year-on-year to $550 million, of which the live broadcast business contributed nearly 70%, and the net profit soared 960% to $145 million. At this point, the live broadcast sector has become the main source of income for Momo, and Momo has gradually moved closer to the main live broadcast and software with social functions.
(2016, Momo Halloween)
The popularity of Momo's live broadcast business can also be reflected in the income of anchors.
According to the data disclosed at that time, the total annual income of Momo's top ten anchors in 2016 was 115 million yuan, of which "A Leng", who had the first number of fans, earned 16 million yuan a year, which was comparable to stars such as Chen He and Lin Xinru. This also means that even if it is drawn at a rate of 50%, Momo can get a higher profit than these anchors. Dramatically, less than half a year after the publicity, this "Momo sister" ran to Douyu to shine.
In that period of "group magic dancing", for reasons such as robbing users, there were many edge balls. In June 2016, the Beijing Internet Culture Association reported that 40 anchors, including Momo, Six Rooms, Huajiao and other platforms, were permanently banned for involving pornography. As Tang Yan said, "What we were very resolute in the original was not resolute in the back, and the mistakes that were originally resisted were all committed one by one." ”
Driven by the live broadcast business, Momo's market value rose rapidly, and Alibaba and Matrix Partners China, which were the two major investors at the time, began to significantly reduce their holdings. In March 2016, Alibaba held 20.2% of Momo and Matrix Partners China held 17.2% of the shares, and by March 2017, Alibaba had withdrawn from the ranks of major shareholders, and Matrix Partners China's shareholding had also dropped to 10.6%. In addition, the family trust fund controlled by Tang Yan and his wife also sold stocks in April 2017, cashing out $152 million, or about 1 billion yuan.
The Internet outlet cycle is indeed very short, and the live broadcast industry, which was still being competed for by capital in 2016, was challenged by short videos since 2017. Aurora big data shows that in February 2018, the number of live APP users was 220 million. According to the data given by iResearch, at the end of 2017, there were only 242 million short video users, and after only half a year, this number became 594 million.
(2017, Momo Annual Ceremony)
Even if Tang Yan did not think that the rise of short videos had an impact on Momo at first, the data would not deceive people. From 2017 to 2018, Momo's live broadcast revenue growth rate fell from 62% to 34%, shrinking by nearly half. In 2020, Momo's live broadcast revenue data began to decline, from 12.45 billion yuan to 9.63 billion yuan, and then to the latest announcement of 8.37 billion yuan, a decrease of more than 4 billion yuan in two years.
The live broadcast business continues to decline, the social sector has encountered a ceiling, the market is worried about Momo's prospects, but also let the stock price like a "roller coaster", after reaching a high of $49.436 in mid-2018, all the way down to March 25, 2022 $7.120, less than 4 years down 85%, the market value loss of $8.3 billion, about 52.8 billion yuan, making Tang Yan lose tens of billions of wealth.
Tang Yan once wanted to buy a Premier League team and join the game of the world's top rich, but this requires at least billions of cash as a support, but with Momo's current market value, it is far from enough. But not long ago, Momo sent out the news of the second listing in Hong Kong.
In fact, Momo has complained more than once that the valuation of US stocks is too low, which also provides a side confirmation for the statement of going public in Hong Kong. Momo, under the internal and external troubles, really needs a new capital market to help. You know, Tang Yan has always wanted to make a "plate as big as Tencent".
03, the birth of the "artifact"
Tang Yan, the founder of Momo, is a man who was once named "Leper".
In the 1980s and 1990s, when the movies of "Ancient Puzzle Boy" and "Gangster" were popular, Tang Yan, who grew up with these people, was keen on the feeling of happiness and revenge. Don't look at his thin body, not very tall, but with the strength of disregard, you can obviously feel that he is a fierce character, that is, he is in a hurry, and he can play with your life.
From being young and crazy to being worth hundreds of millions, no matter how his identity changes, Tang Yan's "rage" always exists. His original avatar on a social platform is the picture before the murder of his eldest son Sonny in the famous gangster movie "The Godfather". "It's my favorite movie, and my favorite character, that satisfies fantasies about men," he says.
As a young man, Tang Yan liked to spend time online and was active on BBS (China's first generation of social media). In the chat room of "Prodigy Bay" in Loudi, Hunan Province, Tang Yan took a name that pulled the wind , TMD , and signed it : "Whoever does not worship me, I will kill whom." He wrote many cynical novels and essays.
Around 2002, under the recommendation of Huang Zhangjin, who was then the deputy director of NetEase News, Tang Yan came to Work at NetEase in Wudaokou, and at night he and his girlfriend squeezed into the basement of SanyuanQiao, becoming an ordinary member of the tens of millions of North Drift troops, enjoying the opportunities given by big cities and suffering from young people. With an urgent life, even if he works overtime until late at night, he has to catch the last bus home.
"Tang Yan understands human nature, and simple additions and deletions can immediately bring about huge traffic changes." Due to his outstanding ability to start headlines, Tang Yan began to climb all the way up, and from time to time drove the bright yellow Fox that pulled the wind, and went out with his friends to pinch his feet and play cards. But there is no feast in the world, and as Fang Sanwen runs away to start a snowball, Tang Yan is also preparing for entrepreneurship.
Tang Yan was undoubtedly lucky, at that time, the rise of smart phones, perhaps many "fruit fans" still remember how amazing Jobs pulled out the "world-changing" iPhone4 at the press conference. At the same time, with the large number of new generations of rural people pouring into urban employment, and the lack of relatively cheap recreational activities, they have a strong need to spend their free time.
All these have created important conditions for the birth of Momo. And "only chat with strangers" is Tang Yan's initial positioning for Momo, "Chatting with suitable strangers is just needed, and there are a large number of people like me in the North Drift group." I hope that two strangers will meet online because of their closeness, and then have an offline relationship..."
In 2011, Tang Yan, who had just taken up his new position as editor-in-chief of NetEase, pulled up two "tough generals" to establish Momo, wrote code while learning, and did something like it. "Entrepreneurship must be for money, just started to run for money, the ultimate goal is still for money." Money doesn't automatically go into your pocket, so get things done."
At that time, Tang Yan never worked overtime, "no company died because of not working overtime, the CEO should only do three things, one is financing, the second is to find key people in key positions, the third is to set a big strategy, and the other should not be managed less." Tang Yan's subordinates commented, "Giving us more room to play, and we will not complain when we make mistakes, but he has a poor concept of time, and he still has to find him when doing things." ”
In the face of complaints, Tang Yan still went his own way. When he got a million-dollar investment from Zihui, he and his wife went to Italy to play for two weeks. Saying to go away is not only Tang Yan's way of venting, but also his attitude towards life. Even after Momo goes public, if it is not a meeting that must be attended, it may be disrupted by Tang Yan, who suddenly has ideas.
In August 2011, Momo was launched on the Apple Store and used the function of location-based stranger social networking to make efforts among young users. However, at that time, there were not many people who were optimistic about Momo, because WeChat, which was launched in the same year, also had a "nearby people" function, backed by the mountain of Tencent, and the number of users soared geometrically. As for Momo, how many people have heard of it?
It wasn't until April 2012 that a video went viral on the Internet that changed Momo's fate. In the video, the character played by Mike Sui mentions Momo many times and recommends it to foreigners who hope to get a sexual encounter. This video not only made Mike Sui an internet celebrity, but also made Momo's downloads soar. In March 2012, Momo was online for more than half a year, and the number of registered users just exceeded 2 million, and by the first anniversary, this number reached 10 million.
Since then, as long as people mention Momo, they will think of dating "artifacts", just like when they talk about Shandong, they will think of excavators, which will deeply tie the two together and become an indelible label. "The impact does outweigh the benefits, and users do grow, but female users have moral pressure." I don't think we're completely innocent, but I didn't do it on purpose."
In fact, in the virtual network world, strangers can show and show off more unscrupulously, in addition to the curiosity and hormones brought by factors, this is also the main reason for the surge of Momo users. There is a saying that you never know, the end of the phone, is a person is a dog.
04, Tang Yan's change
At the annual meeting of Momo's first anniversary, Tang Yan got drunk and said that what he wanted to do most was a good man in the green forest and deeply loved the jianghu who was happy to take revenge. The reason why Tang Yan was sad was because Momo wanted to live and had to make money. "Investors don't care what cabin you sit in, only whether you make money for him", this is what Tang Yan said when he advised Luo Yonghao, who was in economy class, and he did start to work hard in this regard.
On the second anniversary of Momo's birth, version 4.0 was launched, and the membership service and emoji store were launched, officially entering commercialization. Less than 10 days after commercialization, Momo announced that the number of users exceeded 50 million. At the same time, Tang Yan also developed the game industry through a huge user base, launching games and online gift malls.
With the transformation, Momo's revenue data has become good, from $800,000 in the third quarter of 2013, to $2.3 million in the fourth quarter, and to $13.9 million in the first half of 2014, and the registered users have also successfully exceeded 100 million, becoming the social software second only to WeChat. However, Tang Yan did not make money for the financiers, and in 2013, Momo lost $3.8 million and $9.3 million, and reached $25.4 million in 2014.
Constantly burning money, making Tang Yan eager for more financing, and a large number of image advertisements "whitewashing" to prepare for Momo's listing. "In 2014, a wave of TV commercials was invested, spending about 150 million yuan, and the market fee was almost zero before. As for the free publicity, it has nothing to do with us," Tang Yan revealed.
At that time, Momo was full of vitality and won the recognition of capital. On the first day of listing on December 11, 2014, Momo gained a 26% increase, with a market value of about 20 billion yuan, and Tang Yan, who held 26.3% of the shares, was worth more than 5 billion yuan in one fell swoop. The Wall Street Journal commented, "This 35-year-old dares to think and dare to do, using a mobile phone small software to change the social choices of more than 100 million people." ”
Just a day before Momo's listing, the "old owner" NetEase suddenly made a statement, listing Tang Yan's "three deadly sins", saying that he had illegal acts at NetEase, lost his integrity for personal gain, delivered benefits for his wife's company, and was detained for 10 days because of work style problems. However, Tang Yan also immediately made his attitude clear, and in the photo that was circulated, Tang Yan's stubborn middle finger was erect and straight.
After the listing, Tang Yan's manipulation of Momo became more bold, releasing a version 6.0 that almost subverted the original product form, and as for the "discover the people around him", which was once the most distinctive function, it was hidden in the secondary entrance. This strong sense of freshness, like a stimulant injection to Momo, not only made it profitable for the first time in the past four years since its establishment, but also had more than 70 million monthly active users.
In 2018, in order to stabilize the moat in the field of stranger social networking, Momo spent about 4.8 billion yuan to explore the "old rival" in the pocket. "Our product line will be further enriched," Tang Yan said confidently.
However, although Momo's total assets increased from 8.4 billion yuan in 2017 to 18.9 billion yuan in 2018, the total liabilities also increased to 7.9 billion yuan. Judging from the performance alone, the probe is obviously the member who is lagging behind. In 2021, the probe once again handed over an answer sheet with a loss of 330 million yuan, still losing money.
"If one day I am dying, there is still a lot of money that I can't spend, I want to donate to NASA (NASA), I am more interested in celestial bodies", before this, Tang Yan needs to think more about how to find the next profit growth point, let Momo continue to live, and bring more benefits to himself.
(Author 丨 Feng Chenchen, Editor 丨 Liao Ying)
(Except for the separately marked source, the above picture is from Visual China)