The commercialization of Nimo, an overseas live streaming platform, is accelerating, and it is competing for games to go overseas in the 100 billion market

Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Gao Haoxiang

Huya, which wants to tap more commercial value on the vertical track of games, and transforms into game distribution, game props sales, and providing upstream and downstream services for games, has also done well in overseas markets.

A few days ago, Nimo, Huya's overseas live broadcast platform, held an annual global ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand, commending outstanding anchors, guilds and partners from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, the Middle East and other countries and regions, and simultaneously revealed the key directions of future global layout and commercial business.

Li Meng, Senior Vice President of Huya and CEO of Nimo, announced at the event that while developing game live streaming and pan-entertainment live broadcasting, Nimo will continue to dig deep into the commercial value of the game vertical track this year, strengthen cooperation with game manufacturers and brands, and further expand game intermodal transportation, agency distribution, and game upstream and downstream services.

The market generally believes that this is not only a move by Nimo to give full play to the platform's rich anchor resources, excellent live broadcast operation capabilities, and strong localization capabilities to realize its commercial value, but also an important step for Huya to deepen its strategic transformation.

In August last year, Huya announced a new development strategy to drive a shift in the company's commercialization focus by providing more game-related services, such as game distribution, game item sales and game advertising. It is expected to increase game-related services revenue to 30% of total revenue within three years.

Benefiting from this, in the fourth quarter of 2023, Huya Games' advertising and distribution services revenue increased significantly, driving advertising and other revenue revenue revenue to increase by 29.2% year-on-year to RMB190 million. However, compared with the total revenue of 1.576 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, the proportion of game-related service revenue is still at a low level of 12%, which is still far from the target of 30%, and Huya still needs new increments.

On this basis, it is undoubtedly a good move for Huya to accelerate its efforts in overseas markets and leverage Nimo, which already has a huge user base in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other countries and regions, to empower Chinese game manufacturers to go overseas and earn income from it.

Hand in hand with Tencent to break the circle of win-win

The cooperation with Tencent is an important breakthrough for Nimo to explore the commercialization of overseas games.

For example, at this Nimo Global Festival, the shadow of Tencent's MMORPG game "Taris World" can be seen everywhere. Nimo not only set up the venue based on the game scene, but also set up a game trial area on the spot to drive more Southeast Asian players to try and experience the World of Taris.

According to public information, "Taris World" is developed by Tencent's company, Ledong Excellence, and is one of the strategic products released by Tencent Games in 2024. The game was put into final beta on the eve of the game in mid-March this year, and at one point triggered an influx of millions of players to the game at the same time, far exceeding official expectations. Currently, the game is open for global pre-registration, and it is expected to launch globally this summer.

Nimo, which already has a huge user base in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other countries and regions, is an important strategic partner for the game's overseas distribution. At the event, the CEO of LD Excellence pointed out that in the future, "Tarisse World" will join forces with Nimo to quickly promote the game to Southeast Asian users. "I believe that with Nimo's rich game anchor resources, KOL resources, and rich experience in game live broadcast operations, Nimo can create a world for "Taris World" in the MMORPG game vertical track. "The fruit is indicated.

Nimo has done everything he can to achieve this, integrating online and offline resources to reach gamers from all walks of life.

In terms of platform resources, Nimo successfully leveraged the platform's top anchor resources in many Southeast Asian countries to participate in live broadcast interaction and social publicity, and simultaneously convened nearly 200 influential KOLs from many Southeast Asian countries to publish promotional materials and create topic discussions on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube and other social platforms, attracting extremely high attention.

At the same time, in terms of media promotion, Nimo also linked up with the head media, game media, entertainment and other media in Southeast Asian countries to promote in an all-round way, plus large-screen advertising in Bangkok, Thailand, Jakarta, Indonesia and other urban centers, online and offline linkage, causing a wave of Tares in Southeast Asia.

"Taris World" also invested a lot of resources in the launch stage, recruited more than 100 game KOLs in Southeast Asian countries to actively participate in the Taris "Star Head" selection activity, and finally selected the top 10 most popular and popular KOLs in each country through global fan voting, becoming the "star leader" of each country, as the representative of the game in Southeast Asia, allowing players to experience this game in a more interesting and fun form.

It's a win-win partnership on all levels. Through Nimo, the game manufacturer Ledong, which has been deeply involved in China, brought "Taris World" to quickly open the Southeast Asian market and gain the attention of users. For Nimo and Huya, they can also seize the opportunities brought by domestic game manufacturers going overseas, drive the diversification of revenue, and support the overall growth.

Localized and refined operation, Nimo is deeply engaged in game upstream and downstream services and other commercialization services

In August last year, when Huya announced the strategic transformation of Huya, the market was optimistic. At that time, some analysts pointed out to Times Finance that game distribution channels are becoming more and more scattered, and core players need to find their own gathering places. The value of the vertical and professional platform has been re-amplified, which is the opportunity for Huya.

At present, Huya's existing advantages in products are still stable, Huya has a solid user base, and most of the top game anchors are still concentrated in Huya. In the game live streaming industry, where the anchor is, the core users are there. From this perspective, it is logical for Tencent to try to reach more in-depth game users through Huya, recommend new games to them, and sell game props.

Overseas, this advantage will be further amplified. According to the "Research Report on Overseas Payment of Chinese Games" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") released by Gamma Data, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets will reach 16.366 billion US dollars in 2023, exceeding 100 billion yuan for four consecutive years.

The huge overseas market potential has attracted more and more domestic game manufacturers to embark on the road of "going overseas", but problems have also emerged. According to the analysis of the report, as the pattern of mature markets such as Europe, America, Japan and South Korea becomes more and more stable, more and more game companies will focus on Southeast Asia, Latin America and other regions with rapid game market development. However, due to the lack of market experience of most enterprises, as well as complex and changeable local policies, economy, culture, religious beliefs and other factors, it is more difficult to develop business, and localization capabilities around operations, customer acquisition, payment and other links will become the key.

That's where Nimo comes in. As an overseas platform of Huya, Nimo has emerged in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other countries and regions since its successful incubation in 2018. After nearly two years of rapid development, the platform currently has more than 100,000 anchors per month and more than 10 million users worldwide. It has not only signed a number of well-known e-sports teams and top streamers, including professional players from more than 50 top e-sports clubs, but also gathered top KOLs from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, the Middle East and other regions.

In addition, Nimo has also set up a local office and operation team to take the route of localized and refined operation. While efficiently establishing contact with overseas users, we continue to accelerate the pace of expanding overseas partners and omni-channel layout.

Taking Southeast Asia as an example, NIMO has expanded more than 100 partners in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries, focusing on game publishing, marketing, e-sports events and other business sectors, covering high-end comprehensive commercial entities, leading telecom operators, chain supermarket giants, large chain Internet cafes, top e-sports venues, well-known universities and other resource matrix. By complementing the strengths of overseas partners, we can better understand the needs of the local market and provide high-quality services.

At the same time, Nimo also maintains friendly communication with relevant management departments of the local game industry and live broadcast industry, and conducts in-depth exchanges on game copyright distribution, security compliance, local cultural policies, market access regulations, business policies and other aspects.

To ensure that the live broadcast content and cooperation projects of various enterprises comply with local laws, regulations, and cultural habits, and help Nimo and its partners quickly develop business in the local area, reduce business risks, keep abreast of the latest information, and obtain resources and support.

The relevant person in charge of Nimo introduced to Times Finance that Chinese enterprises and Chinese organizations play an important role in Southeast Asia, and they have a positive impact on the development of local economy, society and culture. For example, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, industry associations, etc., Nimo also maintains various forms of cooperation and exchanges with these enterprises and organizations.

Benefiting from this, Nimo has formed a global ecosystem empowerment system around event planning, event production, game intermodal transportation, and localized content marketing. Not only did he hold entertainment tournaments and promote the new version of Tencent's "PUBG MOBILE", which brought tens of millions of exposures, but also helped Lilith's "Call of Dragons" develop a promotion strategy during its debut in Vietnam, bringing a large number of high-value users and rich returns to the product.

At the brand event, Nimo also helped Redmi live broadcast the product launch event in Vietnam, attracting more than millions of online views and nearly 10 million media views, and in the Nimo Global Gala held for two consecutive years, title partners such as "BytePlus" and "volcano engine" also achieved more than 100 million followers.

Li Meng revealed that in the next step, Nimo will continue to expand its business territory and explore the Philippines, Malaysia, Myanmar, Eastern Europe and other countries and regions while continuously improving its comprehensive operation capabilities, and rapidly expand its resources in various places, vigorously develop upstream and downstream related services for games, and strengthen cooperation with domestic and foreign game manufacturers and various enterprises.