BlueFocus is operating steadily in 2021, and the meta-universe business can be expected in the future

On April 27, BlueFocus released its 2021 annual report, achieving operating income of 40.078 billion yuan, a slight decrease of 1.11% year-on-year, and non-net profit attributable to the mother of 655 million yuan, an increase of 11.35% year-on-year. Operating cash flow was $750 million, which continued to be higher than the non-net profit attributable to the mother in the same period.

Overseas business continues to grow, helping Chinese brands to go global

With the gradual easing of the global epidemic and the full advent of the Web 3.0 era, BlueFocus's overall operation in 2021 is stable. Compared with the same period in 2020, the company's existing traditional business remained stable, of which the overseas business continued to grow, with revenue reaching 28.393 billion yuan, an increase of 16.30% year-on-year, and the gross profit margin increased steadily, an increase of 0.31 percentage points year-on-year. Relying on technological innovation capabilities and strong underlying technical support, BlueFocus' self-developed one-stop cross-border social intelligent drainage system "Luban Cross-border Pass" continues to grow, and the ability to serve more small and medium-sized customers is gradually built and improved, with revenue of more than 500 million yuan in 2021, an increase of nearly 200% year-on-year, helping more than 20,000 small and medium-sized enterprises to go to sea.

Based on the global strategic layout, BlueFocus will continue to focus on cross-border overseas business, and in the next few years, it will build overseas business offices in at least 10-20 countries around the world, realize the further upgrading of the core capabilities of overseas business, and strive to help more than one million Chinese enterprises to enter the global market through BlueFocus, creating a true "cross-border marketing first brand".

In addition, as of August 31, 2021, BlueFocus Overseas Company's business revenue was 2.216 billion yuan, and in September 2021, the overseas company's business introduction strategic investment was completed, and the equity disposal funds were equivalent to a total of RMB1.447 billion, and the business income of this part was no longer consolidated, and the goodwill it carried was completely divested of nearly 1.8 billion yuan. As of December 31, 2021, bluefocus goodwill balance was 3.038 billion, accounting for 32.31% of the company's net assets, and all of them were concentrated in the digital advertising business and marketing services segments where revenue and profit continued to grow, and there was no risk of goodwill impairment in the short and medium term.

Fully enter the trading field to achieve the resonance of the "business + sales" effect

In 2021, BlueFocus will continue to promote the strategic layout of "business + sales", layout douyin e-commerce, Tencent private domain, cross-border e-commerce and other fields, fully enter the trading field, provide customers with "business + sales" full-link promotion services, realize business promotion, sales with business, and create more value for customers.

Focusing on the top customers in the eight major industries of games, automobiles, Internet and applications, e-commerce, high-tech products, consumer goods, real estate and finance, BlueFocus constantly tries to combine business + sales, providing services from creativity, production to communication and follow-up sales, basically meeting all the needs of customers in the marketing chain. Among them, BlueFocus and Qiaqia Food jointly practiced the operation + sales of the Kuizhen brand, integrated and linked multiple platforms including JD.com and Douyin, and continuously sought breakthroughs in the direction of refined operation, store self-broadcasting, talent and community distribution, and member operation. On the day of the "Jingdong 11.11 Global Good Things Festival" in 2021, Kwai Zhen's main products ranked first in the transaction volume of POP merchants in the nut fried category, and sales increased by nearly 150 times year-on-year. From integrated marketing full-link rollout to models associated with final sales results, BlueFocus will further build new service capabilities and broaden the company's profit model.

In addition to tailoring the combination of "business + sales" and content e-commerce for brand customers, BlueFocus is also deeply embedded in the ability of the supply chain to create a new DTC brand with a rapid iteration model. On February 10, BlueFocus reached a strategic cooperation with Allander, a world-renowned nutrition and health solutions service provider, to establish a joint venture company "Lanyan Technology LAN+ Tech". Relying on the combination of BlueFocus marketing strength and resource pouring and Islander's strong supply chain advantages, the "camp + sales" ability has formed a momentum effect in the short term: focusing on the absorption of collagen skin care brand human resource vitality to complete the multi-channel sales layout; the newly incubated high-value functional DTC brand Yue Chuyan has entered a new stage of testing; Lanyan Technology New Product Center explores and promotes the commercialization ecological construction of talents, and more than 10 new nutritional and health products will be introduced to the market in the first half of the year.

With the gradual standardization of the talent industry, Lanyan Technology continues to explore and promote the construction of the commercialization ecology of talent, and the in-depth strategic cooperation with some head institutions has been opened; relying on the rapid development of content e-commerce platforms at home and abroad and the global supply chain system, to create an international nutrition and health care brand based on content e-commerce, such as Aland, AlandV, Vitplus and other brands have been operating in many countries.

Layout of new tracks, construction of meta-universe "people and goods yard"

For the blue cursor with the "creativity + technology" gene, the metacosm is a big industry that will change the future, and the company will fully invest in the layout of the meta-universe in 2021, reach strategic cooperative relations with top partners in the industry such as Ali Damo Academy and Baidu Xilang, and quickly complete the organizational structure adjustment and the construction of professional teams. Nowadays, around the meta-universe "human cargo yard", BlueFocus has completed the full-scenario business layout: virtual people, virtual objects, virtual scenes three business tracks go hand in hand, each track has independent IP, technology products, customized services three plates, forming a cross-support business ecological panorama.

On the virtual human side, by focusing on content creation and production and content-based operation, combined with new technology capabilities, BlueFocus released the Guofeng digital virtual person "Su Xiaomei" and the virtual musician K, and built a virtual IP matrix. It is worth noting that Su Xiaomei took the stage of the 2022 Beijing Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala, using virtual characters to add a cross-dimensional national style science fiction color to the Beijing Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala, and ranked first in the most anticipated program with a turnout of up to 71.81%; in the field of digital people, BlueFocus released the real-life digital twin drive platform "Fen Shen You", providing key people in all walks of life and in all fields with low-cost, high-efficiency, hyper-realistic solutions based on the "sharing" scenario, and has begun to provide services for commercial customers.

On the virtual item side, BlueFocus launched its own digital art distribution platform MEME, and issued the [Foresight ME] Genesis Badge Project, built a digital asset hub in the meta-universe, and established the BlueX Blockchain Lab and the UDA Digital Artist Alliance to connect brands, content creators and digital artists, providing users with an unprecedented digital collection interactive experience.

In terms of virtual scenes, "Blue Universe" entered Baidu Xilang, becoming the first "meta-universe marketing space" in China, attracting 5 brands to settle in at the beginning of its entry, and obtaining 1.1 million user onlooker experience. In the future, with the continuous update of Baidu Xi'an version, Blue Universe will successively open up the player task system, redeem mysterious gifts for points, provide new features such as jump purchases in the station, and establish new interactive connections for brands and consumers in the era of the meta-universe. In addition, bluebox xR Studios virtual shooting studio invested by BlueFocus was officially opened in April, which will provide customers with the world's leading virtual reality integrated solutions such as advertising TV virtual shooting, xR virtual conference, xR virtual stage, and xR virtual studio that meet the "Hollywood Movie xR Virtual Shooting Standard".

According to the 2021 annual report data, the balance of BlueFocus cash and cash equivalents is 2.678 billion yuan, superimposed on 1.274 billion financial investment funds, sufficient monetary capital reserves and cash flow, which has laid a solid foundation for BlueFocus to increase marketing technology investment, improve the "business + sales" full chain business layout, and explore new businesses such as meta-universe. Since 2015, BlueFocus has invested a total of 728 million yuan in R&D, and about 100 million yuan in new business investment in 2021, and has invested in enterprises such as the popular Qi Tian, Qi Le Infinity, Dark Matter Intelligence, ZhuYu Technology, Zi Fei Ying Ren, Dalan Technology, Lan Yan Technology, etc., to create a business + sales and meta-universe ecology. It is worth noting that at present, the blue cursor meta-universe business has more than 10 million revenue, and with the gradual landing of consumer-grade meta-universe applications in the future, it will accelerate the integration of bluefocus marketing model and become a new growth engine.

On the same day as the release of the annual report, BlueFocus announced the first quarter of 2022 performance report, affected by the impact of the epidemic, the business of overseas companies and the amortization of restricted stock costs, the revenue growth rate in the first quarter slowed down, achieving operating income of 7.782 billion yuan and non-net profit attributable to the mother of 119 million yuan. "2022 is the first year that BlueFocus opens a new strategy, and the current profit fluctuations will not shake our determination to continue to invest in new businesses and implement new strategies." In a letter to investors, BlueFocus CEO Pan Fei said, "I believe that a new round of strategic investment and practice will make BlueFocus run to a broader blue star sea!" "With the continuous expansion of breakthroughs in the new track of operation + sales and meta-universe, BlueFocus revenue will move towards a steady growth model, changing the business model of traditional agency companies while achieving a real transformation in the meta-universe era."