30,000 virtual humans began to roll in

Author | Watermelon Big Bang

In the past 2023 New Year's Eve party, virtual humans once again attracted attention and heated discussions. From Hunan Satellite TV singer Yao Anna performing on the same stage with the digital human band, to the 10th anniversary performance show of virtual singer Luo Tianyi on the Chinese New Year's Eve of Station B, in 2022, virtual humans not only did not ebb and flow, but the application field became more extensive.

According to the calculation of the Speedway Metaverse Research Institute, the scale of the virtual market is still growing, and the scale of the virtual human market in 2022 will increase by 64.5% year-on-year, and the growth rate will reach the peak in the past three years.

Recently, foreign media CNBC data shows that in China, many companies spend 100,000 yuan a year to "hire" a virtual person. Moreover, there are already more than 570,000 virtual human-related companies in China, and it is not difficult to foresee that this boom will further expand in 2023.

1

Throughout 2022, 22 virtual companies received investment and two grew into unicorns

According to Tianyan inspection data, as of the end of 2022, the number of virtual human-related enterprises in mainland China whose current enterprise names or business scope include "digital content production services and digital cultural creative software development", and whose status is active, existing, moving in and moving out, exceeded 570,000. From the perspective of the establishment time of enterprises, 46.6% of enterprises were established within one year, and the sunrise attribute of the industry is fully displayed.

After combing, 22 virtual human companies received investment in 2022. Including Xiaoice, Ranmai Technology, Chuangyi Technology, and the next world culture that has created virtual star images such as "Di Li Lengba" and "Taosman". In 2022, there are four unicorns in China's metaverse companies, with a Xiaoice valuation of US$2.308 billion, and Mohua Technology is valued at US$1.1 billion, which is two of the four unicorn companies.

From the perspective of the investor team, in addition to a large number of well-known investment institutions, you can also see the figures of Byte, Ali, Baidu, Netease, Xiaomi, Lenovo and so on.

In addition, as of September 2022, the investment and financing amount of the mainland virtual digital human track has exceeded that of 2021, reaching 2.49 billion yuan. In 2015, this figure was only 33 million yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 97.71%.

Data source: Yiou Think Tank

Whether it is trial and error, testing the water, or gimmicks, virtual humans as the entry and exit port of the meta-universe, the entire industry hopes to use this to push the door to the meta-universe, especially the most anticipated by large manufacturers. For example, ByteDance, its first virtual idol character "Kano Orange", appeared at the 2021 Beijing Tai Spring Festival Gala.

In the year that followed, Byte continued to increase its weight in the field of virtual reality. First invested in Beijing Lehua Entertainment, and then wholly controlled the copyright company of the virtual idol girl group A-SOUL, and mastered the core copyright.

ByteDance, which has mastered the technical advantages, provides the underlying technology for the virtual idol A-SOUL, and Lehua, which is good at idol operation, provides content planning and operation for A-SOUL, and then the route is the same as Luo Tianyi, creating characters, releasing singles, live broadcasts and performances, and quickly becoming the mainstay of virtual idols from 0.

At the beginning of 2022, ByteDance invested in Li Weike and continued to increase its weight in the virtual market.

In addition, there are quite a few virtual singers coming out in 2022.

Luya, from iFLYTEK, is also enrolled in the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 2022, and on the official public account, Shangyin welcomed her admission.

Source: Shanghai Conservatory of Music

Lu Xiaoxi, a virtual musician of Tencent Music, made his debut and also appeared on Weibo hot search that day.

There is also the virtual singer "Xiaomiu Metamuse", who debuted in 2022, received his first endorsement 3 days after birth, and was invited by Google Womenwill 2022 Annual Conference 10 days ago to give keynote speeches on the same stage with Annabel Lin, vice president of Google China, and former Olympic sailing champion Xu Lijia.

2

Changes in the virtual market in 2022: virtual singers no longer "thrive"

In 2022, there have been some changes in the virtual market.

Change 1: The business value of virtual is gaining more recognition

It has to be admitted that the commercial value of virtual humans in 2022 has gained more recognition. Foreign media CNBC data shows that in China, many companies spend 100,000 yuan a year to "hire" a virtual person. The scope of virtual human buyers is also gradually expanding to other areas, including financial services companies, local tourism boards and state media in addition to the entertainment industry.

Change 2: Multiple applications unfold, virtual singers no longer "stand alone"

At the same time, the virtual human camp has also undergone a lot of changes. Until 2019, virtual singers contributed the main revenue of the market; However, since 2020, the audience of Chinese virtual UP owners has expanded, and the scale of revenue has grown rapidly, surpassing virtual singers;

In 2022, virtual anchors, virtual beauty bloggers and other more diverse virtual people have seized more market share, but virtual singers are still the type of virtual idol that most people pay attention to for the first time.

For example, the head virtual singer Luo Tianyi is still in the period of rising fans in 2022, but in terms of commercial value, there has been a certain degree of decline.

In the "List of Virtual Humans with the Most Commercial Value" released by Miaozhen Marketing Academy of Sciences, due to the decrease in the number of brands that Luo Tianyi cooperated with in the second half of 2022, the ranking dropped from 4th in the first half of the year to 7th in the second half of the year, which is not as good as other virtual humans such as beauty expert Liu Yexi and anime IP Yizen Little Monk.

3. The cost of virtual humans can be reduced by up to 80%

For a long time, the high production cost of virtual humans has been a bottleneck that the industry needs to break through, and relevant reports show that the production cost of virtual humans ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions.

Taking Liu Yexi as an example, the production cost of one short video is as high as one million, the production cost of a virtual idol single is as high as 2 million yuan, and the cost of a holographic virtual concert is 20 million.

In terms of production cycle, a movie-level virtual digital human like Teresa Teresa took a year and a half in 2013, and now, the time to complete the delivery of a more complex hyper-realistic digital human can be greatly shortened to 2-3 months.

But production costs are already starting to fall in 2022. Li Shiyan, head of Baidu's digital human and robot business, said that the cost of virtual humans has fallen by about 80% since 2021. The annual cost of three-dimensional virtual humans is about 100,000 yuan, and the annual cost of two-dimensional virtual humans is about 20,000 yuan.

3

Where is the virtual human market going in 2023?

1. Market demand continues to grow, and the industry will maintain rapid development

Especially in the "meta-universe" ecology that the music industry is building, digital idols can be used as an important display tool.

The share of digital virtual human companies in the market will also continue to expand. According to IDC data, the global digital virtual human market is expected to reach $2.48 billion in 2023; the Chinese market will account for more than half of it.

Meanwhile, 45% of advertisers said they are likely to sponsor performances of influencers or invite them to brand events in 2023.

2. The industry chain is becoming more and more mature, and the market concentration is increasing

With the continuous development of the virtual human market, industry participants will continue to increase, and the industrial chain will become increasingly mature and standardized, which is conducive to the long-term stable development of the industry.

A general consensus is that the virtual human industry is still in its early stages, and killer products have not yet emerged. According to statistics, after the emergence of the meta-universe concept, there are about 30,000 digital people (first financial data) in China, but there are very few high-quality products.

Especially in the music industry, the only head singer is still Luo Tianyi, but after the birth of various new digital idols, there may be new popular singers.

3. Virtual humans continue to diversify, and more male avatars may enter the game

An interesting phenomenon is that the virtual humans that appeared at this year's New Year's Eve party were almost all female characters. In the list of China's top 10 hyper-realistic virtual humans in 2022 released by iMedia Gold List, only Eassy, ranked ninth, is a male character. In other words, more than 90% of the virtual human characters out of the circle are women.

But this also means that the operation of female virtual humans will face more fierce competition, so the male virtual humans who are absent at the moment may become the next stage of strength.

At the same time, the application of virtual humans in brand marketing and social services is becoming increasingly diverse.

4. Competition continues to intensify

According to public data, as of August last year, Station B had more than 36,000 virtual anchors, but more than half of the virtual anchors had zero monthly income, and two-thirds of the virtual anchors had less than 10,000 fans.

At present, only the head virtual person can receive endorsements or advertising, many virtual anchors in the B side of the commercial promotion is still very little, and with the large number of virtual people incubation, the rarity of virtual idols will be diluted, due to the limited coverage of virtual idols at this stage, competition will continue to increase.