Author | Tour the city
Edit | Little white
At the end of last month, Kuaishou Technology disclosed its Q4 and annual results announcement for 2021 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which is also the second annual report delivered after Kuaishou's listing.
Kuaishou achieved operating income of 24.43 billion yuan in Q4 2021, an increase of 35.0% year-on-year. Adjusted net profit was a loss of $3.57 billion.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
As one of the famous short video APPS in China, what kind of annual performance will Kuaishou bring us this time, please listen to the wind and clouds.
Online marketing services have grown rapidly, and the live streaming business has taken a back seat
Kuaishou's total revenue broke through 80 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 37.9% year-on-year. The growth rate is still strong, but it is down relative to the previous year's growth rate.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
If you want to say who has the most credit for growth, it must be an "online marketing service".
Revenue from online marketing services reached RMB42.67 billion, up 95.2% year-on-year. "Other services" currently account for a relatively small proportion of revenue, but their revenue has also doubled compared to last year.
The performance of the live broadcasting business was unsatisfactory, and it was the only negative growth of the three businesses, a decrease of 6.7% year-on-year. The current rumored policy on the supervision of the live broadcasting business is stepping up, and it is clear that this business is also the part that investors are most worried about.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
As a result, online marketing services have significantly improved the company's overall performance. This is also due to the growth of user traffic on the APP, and the more traffic, the advertisers will naturally come.
In 2021, the number of advertisers on Kuaishou increased by more than 60% year-on-year, and the average monthly spend of advertisers on the platform increased significantly.
This has also led to a significant change in the company's revenue structure. As of 2020, "live broadcasting" is still the company's largest business, and by 2021, it will take a back seat, and "online marketing services" have become the company's top priority.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
Two years ago, the Kuaishou live broadcast business accounted for more than 80% of the total revenue, and in recent years, with the growth of user volume, the growth momentum of online marketing has obviously become stronger, and the company's business structure has undergone a significant change.
The amount of activity has reached a new high, and the effect of innovative short dramas is obvious
As mentioned above, only when the number of users of the APP is up, more advertisers will be willing to go to the platform. Not only for Kuaishou, but also for most apps, user activity will be one of the key indicators.
Kuaishou has reached a new high in both daily and monthly active numbers: the average daily activity in 2021 is 300 million, and the average monthly activity is 540 million.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
But while the record highs are being reached, the growth rate of activity is slowing. Whether it is daily or monthly activity, in 2021, it has dropped by more than 30 percentage points compared with the previous year, entering a medium and low-speed growth.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
The length of time spent per active user has also continued to grow. At present, the time that each active user spends on Kuaishou every day is close to 2 hours.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
As a user of Kuaishou, Fengyunjun believes that the "Kuaishou Short Drama" launched by the company in 2021 has played a great role in user acquisition and retention.
Although the content of ordinary short videos is shortened, the creator's work and the work will generally be independent of each other. Although the content of traditional TV dramas is coherent, the time of an episode is inevitably too long, usually in 40-50 minutes.
(Source: Kuaishou APP)
The Kuaishou skit combines the two. For users, the time to commute to work can brush a whole series of dramas on the subway, and because of the short duration, the plot of Kuaishou short dramas is usually simple and rough, easy to understand, which is very suitable for brainless watching dramas.
The barrier to entry is extremely low, and the audience range is also large.
For creators, compared with traditional TV series, the input cost of short dramas can be said to be very low, which is very suitable for some small Internet celebrity institutions at present, and only a few actors need to be able to "finish". If you shoot well, you can even hatch a bunch of fast food IP.
If users want to continue to chase the next plot, they need to pay attention to the creator, which also enhances the user stickiness of the platform and increases the use time.
Therefore, this approach can be said to be mutually beneficial and win-win.
Kuaishou also emphasized the success of the short drama model in its annual report, and the content of low-threshold fast food is indeed very much in line with the needs of today's people.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
Not only has the user's usage time increased, but the company's ability to generate revenue from each active user has also increased. At present, the average online marketing service revenue per daily active user of Kuaishou has reached 138.4 yuan, an increase of 67.6% year-on-year.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
The intensity of burning money is unprecedented, and the cash flow of operating activities has turned negative
Although the company has created new highs in operating income, user activity, and user use time, the company's loss can not be reduced at all.
The Company's adjusted net profit (loss for the period plus share-based compensation expense, change in fair value of convertible redeemable preferred stock and net change in fair value of investments) reached -$18.85 billion in 2021, a loss of 2.4 times higher than in 2020.
(Source: Company Annual Report)
The company's efforts in research and development, sales and marketing have also increased, up 128.8% and 66.0% year-on-year, respectively.
(Source: Company's 2021 Annual Report)
In addition to net profit, Kuaishou's net cash flow from operating activities is not optimistic, turning from positive to negative in 2021 to -5.52 billion yuan.
(Source: Company's 2021 Annual Report)
It can be said that at present, Kuaishou is still in the stage of burning money, and it is still fighting for ammunition and grass. At the end of 2021, the company still has cash and equivalents of 32.61 billion yuan on its books.
(Source: Company's 2021 Annual Report)
In 2021, the company's business structure has undergone a major transformation, with a significant decline in reliance on live broadcasting and a rapid growth of online marketing services, becoming a new growth driver.
With the innovation of content, the user's activity on the APP and the length of use have increased to varying degrees, and the growth of traffic will also attract more merchants to advertise.
If you want to stand out in the increasingly competitive short video track, continuous investment is indispensable, and the pressure that Kuaishou will face in the future is still not small.
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