After tossing for several years, Meitu has turned over with AI?
Recently, Meitu Inc. (hereinafter referred to as Meitu) released a performance forecast, saying that its adjusted net profit in 2023 will be RMB 330 million to RMB 370 million, an increase of about 200%-230% compared with 2022. In this regard, Meitu also explained that the growth was partly due to the above-expected user growth and membership conversion of AIGC-driven imaging and design products, and partly due to the positive impact of non-operating items, which were mainly due to the reversal of cryptocurrency impairment losses. You must know that Meitu spent nearly 600 million yuan on currency speculation, with a floating loss of 285 million yuan in 2022, and the 2023 interim report shows that the cryptocurrency impairment loss will be reversed to 185 million yuan. This also shows that the contribution of AIGC's business to Meitu cannot be underestimated, and if the profitability is consistent with the disclosure, Meitu will achieve profitability for two consecutive years. It is worth mentioning that since its listing in 2016, Meitu has been losing money for 5 consecutive years. The announcement of the profit announcement is undoubtedly good news for Meitu. So, can Meitu really rely on its AI business to completely turn around?
In 2008, the Meitu App started with the "one-click beauty" Meitu App, which attracted a large number of female registrations, and in 2013, the number of mobile users of the Meitu App exceeded 100 million. In 2016, Meitu was successfully listed in Hong Kong, with a market value of nearly HK$100 billion. In the first year since its listing, Meitu has 1.5 billion users and a maximum of 520 million monthly active users.
However, due to the low technical threshold of P-Map, Meitu has also begun to decline due to the rapid rise of major beauty apps, and the number of monthly active users has been declining for many years, and as of June 2023, Meitu's monthly active users have only reached 247 million, almost halving. Although Meipai belongs to the earliest batch of short video products, due to vague positioning, strategic mistakes, and the impact of short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, Meipai was squeezed out of the first echelon of short videos early. Meitu's selfie-oriented mobile phone has gradually disappeared from public view amid fierce competition in the domestic mobile phone market. Over the years, Meitu has also worked hard to find new tracks, such as beauty e-commerce, dabbling in financial businesses such as lending and insurance, launching women's mobile games, testing the waters of beauty blind boxes, and even trying to invest in cryptocurrencies in an attempt to find new profit points for the company in various attempts. However, the plate is getting bigger and bigger, but the result is unsatisfactory, and it was once ridiculed as "money earned by luck is lost by strength".
This road does not work, and then go to find another way. Until 2023, Meitu seems to have found its own "natal track" - AI. With the popularity of the AIGC concept, Meitu began to increase its layout in the AIGC field, focusing on the development of its main business, and successively released 7 products, extending users from the C-end to the B-side, and Meitu's monthly active users also ushered in a slight increase, and everything seems to be developing in a good direction. According to the financial report, VIP subscriptions for AI tools have replaced advertising as Meitu's largest revenue.
However, Meitu is not without its worries. Nowadays, the AI track is in full swing, and Meitu is facing not only Byte's Xingtu and Alibaba's Miao Ya, but also applications from other major manufacturers such as Miaojian, Kuaiying, and Qingyan, and even smartphone manufacturers. In addition, the price advantage of Meitu's AI products is not outstanding, and the product still needs to be improved, so it is not so easy to get money out of users' pockets.
So far, Meitu has indeed achieved some results in the AIGC track, but it still needs time to verify how long and how far it can go, and perhaps Meitu's challenge has just begun.