Rakuten on April 25
It's worth buying tech (300785. SZ) today officially released its 2023 Annual Report. During the reporting period, the revenue of Worth Buy in 2023 was 1.452 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.17%, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 74.7753 million yuan, and the confirmed GMV for e-commerce platforms and brand owners exceeded 28 billion yuan throughout the year.
Among them, the core product "What is worth buying" of Worthbuy Technology in 2023 contributed revenue of 954.3394 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.55%, accounting for 65.74% of operating income, and innovative business contributed revenue of 497.299 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45.79%, and its proportion in operating income further increased to 34.26%.
AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content), a key strategic project launched in early 2023, has been applied in business scenarios and management processes, and Worthbuy Technology, which fully embraces artificial intelligence, is actively participating in reshaping the business ecosystem.
On the premise of comprehensively considering factors such as strategic development planning, annual profit, cash flow, and future operating capital needs, the company reasonably formulates an annual profit distribution plan every year to effectively protect the interests of all shareholders. In 2023, the cash dividend of Worthbuy Technology will be 27.8397 million yuan, accounting for 37.23% of the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies. In the past four years since its listing, Worthbuy Technology has accumulated cash dividends of nearly 160 million yuan.
The core product "What is worth buying": about 197 million orders were completed
In 2023, the number of orders for "What's Worth Buying" and the corresponding mobile app will be about 197 million, and the confirmed GMV for e-commerce platforms and brands will increase to 20.918 billion. With the continuous strengthening of the cooperation between "What's Worth Buying" and the leading e-commerce platforms, as well as the effective expansion of new brand cooperation customers, its commercial monetization efficiency is also improving.
In 2023, the number of "what is worth buying" content will further increase to 28.5323 million, a year-on-year increase of 38.79%; The average number of monthly active users was 39.2897 million, a year-on-year increase of 1.02%. By the end of 2023, the number of registered users of "What's Worth Buying" reached 28,896,800, a year-on-year increase of 9.50%, and the number of mobile app activations was 71,808,500, a year-on-year increase of 11.53%.
Behind the steady development, driven by AIGC technology, "what is worth buying" in 2023 has opened a deep change.
At the beginning of 2023, Worthbuy Technology identified AIGC as a key strategic project of the company and established an independent AI business department, which not only vigorously invested resources to improve its own technical level in the field of artificial intelligence, but also comprehensively promoted the intelligent level of the company's business and management. In 2023, the R&D investment of Worthbuy Technology will be 164 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.76%, and AIGC R&D is the focus.
In the second half of 2023, based on the self-developed "Worth Buying Consumption Model", Worth Buy Technology launched a series of applications such as "AI Comment Robot", "AI Purchase Suggestion", and "ZDM-copilot Creator Tool" on the "What is Worth Buying" App, realizing the multi-scenario landing of AIGC.
Among them, the "AI Comment Robot" can automatically generate valuable comments for users' purchase decisions based on the relevant content of the platform and interact with users in the comment area; "AI Purchase Suggestions" can summarize the highlights and purchase points of products for users such as mobile phones, digital appliances, and home appliances with complex decision-making links, and help users quickly obtain decision-making support; and "ZDM-copilot Creator Tool" provides auxiliary tools for users to create content.
At the same time, "What's Worth Buying" also uses the ability of "Worth Buying Consumption Model" to comprehensively revise and upgrade the content search, and explore a new "matching + generative search service": AIGC technology summarizes the full information of the search result page, effectively improving the information acquisition efficiency of the search scenario. In addition, "What's Worth Buying" also introduces AI technology into community governance, effectively improving the efficiency of community governance.
Richer and more diverse consumer content and more efficient structured information collation mean a significant improvement in the "content acquisition experience" and "consumption decision-making efficiency" for users. In 2023, the AIGC output content of the "What's Worth Buying" platform will increase by 150.58% year-on-year, accounting for 36.66% of the overall content release.
The AI shopping assistant "Xiaoxin", which will be launched on the "What's Worth Buying" app in February 2024, goes one step further, can deeply understand user needs through dialogue, and quickly summarize the real-time consumption experience and price information of the whole network according to user needs, generate word-of-mouth summary, product comparison, product recommendation, network-wide price comparison and other information, and provide personalized suggestions for consumers with different decision-making difficulties, realizing the leap from AIGC (artificial intelligence-generated content) to agent (agent).
Innovative business accounted for 34.26%
In the overall operating income of Worthbuy Technology in 2023, innovative business accounts for 34.26%. Previously, in 2022, 2021 and 2020, the proportion was 27.77%, 25.52% and 8.61%, respectively.
Starting from 2021, based on the new development strategy, Worthbuy Technology has in-depth layout of the three core sectors of consumer content, marketing services and consumer data, and on the basis of strengthening the core competitiveness of the original business, it has continuously incubated a variety of innovative businesses such as "full-link services for matching goods and media, agency operation services, consumer MCN, brand marketing", etc., and gradually established a full range of services.
Nowadays, the continuous increase in the proportion of revenue intuitively reflects the obvious enhancement of the competitiveness of the technology innovation business in their respective fields. In 2023, the two innovative businesses of "full-link services for matching goods and media" and "agency operation services" have grown into profit growth points that have begun to take shape.
The "full-link service of matching goods and media" is mainly responsible for Xingluo Chuangxiang, a subsidiary of Worthbuy Technology. Star Info has collected many merchant resources from Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin and other platforms, through docking massive media resources, to achieve accurate matching of people and goods, and based on the self-developed technology platform to manage the business process of the entire link, while helping "efficient promotion of merchants" and "efficient monetization of media".
In 2023, Star Luo Chuangxiang was selected as the "2023 Double 11 Taobao Alliance Excellent Service Provider" by Alimama Taobao Alliance, the "2023 Brand U Enjoy Service Provider" by Taobao Alliance, and the Zhejiang Regional Council of Taobao Alliance.
The "agency operation service" is mainly responsible for the subsidiaries of Worthbuy Technology, Risheng Xingluo and Youzhu Technology. This integrated business model of "advertising + e-commerce" puts forward higher requirements for the professionalism of brand operations, and also provides an opportunity for Worthbuy Technology to give full play to its own e-commerce operation capabilities, content generation operation capabilities and big data capabilities.
Among them, the agency operation business of Risheng Xingluo focuses on the Douyin platform, and currently holds key qualifications such as the qualification of giant engine Qianchuan agent service provider, star map agent service provider, huge cloud map data service provider, and FACTOR certified service provider qualification. In 2023, Sunrise Star has achieved rapid development and served a number of well-known international beauty and personal care brands. Up to now, Helping Technology has served nearly 70 domestic and foreign brands and industrial belt source factories.
While Worthbuy Technology is fully embracing artificial intelligence, its subsidiaries are also exploring AI applications in their respective business scenarios.
As an AI tool that automatically generates pictures and texts, the "Magic Lamp Material Assistant" can effectively improve the level of creative output and content production efficiency in marketing scenarios, which not only optimizes the internal workflow of Star Vision, but also helps the brands and merchants it serves reduce the cost of content production and improve the digital level of enterprises.
Outlook for 2024: "Two Policies" and "Three Plans"
In 2023, in the face of the rapidly changing market, it will be able to maintain steady development and benefit from actively grasping the opportunities of technological change and business innovation while strengthening the core competitiveness of the original business.
In 2024, Worthbuy Technology will continue to focus on strengthening the market competitiveness of various key businesses in accordance with the two strategic guidelines of "technology empowerment" and "key breakthroughs" to achieve better business development and long-term success.
The policy of "technology empowerment" is not only the adherence to the fundamental principle of "technology-driven" by Worthbuy Technology, but also the strong support of the R&D and application results of AIGC technology in 2023. The "key breakthrough" policy means the key investment of resources. In 2024, the three major "business plans" that Worthbuy Technology will focus on focusing on key areas such as what is worth buying, AIGC and going overseas, which "have the opportunity to bring accelerated growth to the company".
In order to better realize "technology empowerment", in 2024, Worthbuy Technology will systematically promote the implementation of AIGC technology based on the "Worthworth Consumption Model". In addition to developing and applying more AIGC tools and agents according to the needs of specific business scenarios, it empowers the upgrading of products and services in the two major business segments of consumer content and marketing services, and improves internal business and management efficiency.
At the same time, it will also promote the "small value" to the market as an independent product and operate it as an independent brand, and seek to open the ability of "small value consumption model" and "small value" to brand owners and e-commerce platforms to meet the AIGC application needs of customers.
For the core product "what is worth buying", in 2024, while continuing to use AIGC to drive its technological upgrade, Worthbuy Technology will also redesign the "what is worth buying" App based on the long-term trend of "interest leads user consumption", iterate the product with "user interest" as the core, reconstruct the content production and distribution system, and adopt a more accurate, interesting and practical "based on user interests" The high-quality content covers the diverse needs of users in the consumer field, and improves the scale of users and the activity of the community.
Going overseas means a new opportunity for epitaxial growth. In view of the fact that the global e-commerce market, especially the e-commerce market in some emerging countries, is still in a stage of rapid growth, and there is a large market demand for consumer content and content marketing services, the "worth buying" model created in China is still very competitive in the international market. In 2024, Worthbuy Technology will promote the "Worthbuy" model to go overseas through self-operation and cooperation, and truly take the first step in the company's global expansion.
Worthbuy Technology said that in 2024, it will continue to fully invest in AI technology research and development, and transform the long-term accumulation of large-scale, high-quality consumer content and consumption data into more tangible new quality productivity through large models, while reducing costs and increasing efficiency, it will more effectively support the upgrading of core products, the development of innovative business and the implementation of overseas plans, and continue to pursue innovative growth.
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Lei Di was founded by Lei Jianping, a media person, if it is reprinted, please indicate the source.