On March 30, 2022, Himalaya submitted another prospectus.
It has only been two weeks since the Hong Kong stock prospectus submitted by Himalaya on September 13, 2021, has become invalid.
This is the third time that Himalayas is ready to go public.
When Yu Jie'er Fang Ge and Shu Le talked about this, my first reaction was: obsession.
Himalaya's obsession with listing has nearly penetrated into the marrow, especially after the title of "China's first online audio stock" was picked by Lychee in January 2020, Himalaya seems to be more obsessed with listing.
In 2018, there were media reports that Himalaya expected to go public in Hong Kong, but it was denied by Himalayas.
Subsequently, in 2021, it formally submitted a prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, but it was unsuccessful.
In September 2021, it resubmitted its IPO application on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but due to more than 6 months, its prospectus documents showed that it was invalid not long ago. This update to the prospectus is also the third sprint IPO of Himalaya.
In the theoretical market, audio can be used in almost any environment. However, because the scene is not limited, the audio platform will be used for more time than the video platform at full load.
Although audio has more advantages than video in terms of usage time and scene, online music and short videos also cut into the scene.
This seems to be the story of long audio, but in fact long audio is only theoretically permeable, but it has not been able to achieve piercing in the ear.
According to the Himalaya Prospectus, the mainland network audio penetration rate in 2021 is 20.2%, far lower than the 56.8%, 77.2% and 76.2% of online music, short videos and long videos in 2021.
In order to achieve a deeper bond, the Himalayas chose to play in a way that is not surprising: Netflix.
Whether it's long video or long audio, all content production platforms want to be the next Netflix.
In short, it is to rely on exclusive blockbuster content to bring a huge number of fans.
In 2021, Himalaya bet this blockbuster on "Three-Body Problem".
Himalaya is right, and despite the need for VIP membership and payment, the cumulative number of listens to The Three-Body Audiobook and Radio Drama reached 926 million times by the end of 2021.
Specialized content is becoming more and more popular with listeners, which may be the right direction for content production platforms.
After all, UGC creators are very loyal to pure content distribution platforms.
At present, Netflix has been successful on long-term video platforms, and under the constant total time of users, there is not much time left for online audio.
The Himalayas can only face the battle, although the blockbuster can not be sought, but if the Himalayas do not even gamble, they may lose the right to compete.
At the same time, Himalaya is unlikely to turn from advertising to profit, which makes its breakthrough point only on Netflix.
The reason for this judgment is that advertising revenue has a ceiling.
The total number of ads placed on the market has a rough stock, and advertisers will put them on various platforms according to their own choices, perhaps the price or the tone.
Now a large part of the advertising, because of the rapid development of live streaming with goods, will choose to put ads in live streaming goods, which makes the profit prospects of online audio more bleak.
The total number of ads is limited and the influence of live streaming is in the front, even if Himalaya's advertising revenue is 1.49 billion yuan, an increase of 38.8% year-on-year.
But this growth will gradually slow down in the coming years. Audio, which is still a niche area for users, cannot escape this trend. It is still difficult to make a profit from advertising.
According to the prospectus, between 2018 and 2021, Himalaya has accumulated losses of 13.055 billion yuan. The difficulty of making profits is a common pain point faced by the online audio industry at present.
The single profit model will also be its fatal injury. According to the prospectus, although its advertising and live broadcast revenue also has a certain proportion, the proportion is weakening. Advertising and live streaming revenue accounted for 25.4% and 17.1% of Himalaya's full-year revenue in 2021, respectively.
If you want to go public, you must have a "story" that can make the capital market fall in love, not just a sentence of Netflix to fool around.
Specific to the core breakthrough of Netflix, Himalaya's choice may be radio dramas to achieve a top ceiling that cannot change the current revenue structure.
At present, the business of several major heads of audio platforms, Such as Himalaya, Dragonfly FM and Lychee FM, is too similar.
These platforms basically rely on "PGC+PUGC+UGC" to get traffic and monetize through subscriptions, ads and live streams.
Differentiation is obviously unrealistic, and high-quality products rely on radio dramas to form an "exclusive serial" advantage.
The so-called radio drama, that is, to break the form of one-person broadcasting, radio drama has a number of voice actors to participate in the basis, through dialogue, commentary, musical accompaniment and sound effects, can help the audience to understand the characters and stories more graphically.
There are not a few people who are willing to spend a lot of money for radio dramas, and the hundreds of millions of broadcasts of "Secretly Can't Hide" prove this.
The overall data is also very impressive, Himalaya mobile users spent a total of 1,744.1 billion minutes listening to audio content in 2021, and the average daily listening time of mobile users was 144 minutes.
The number of paid members was 14.4 million, an increase of 52% year-on-year, and the average monthly revenue contribution of each monthly active user on mobile increased from 2.7 yuan in 2019 to 4.2 yuan in 2021, nearly doubling the amount of payment.
However, the volume of radio dramas is still limited, so long audio platforms, or Himalayas, must find more explosive products like radio dramas in order to let capital see the hope of profitability.
If you can't find a new, unique, and effective way to monetize, and just want to cultivate the habits of using audio software, then Himalaya still has a long way to lose money, and it is difficult to gain the favor of capital again.
In other words, repeated impacts on the market may also end in vain.
(Zhang Shule, Columnist of People's Daily and People's Post and Telegraph, Observer of Internet and Game Industry)