Sentence | Finger Moon
Since April, Mango TV's scheduled content has ushered in a wave of small climaxes.
"Riding the Wind 2024" was launched as scheduled, positioning itself as an international women's cultural exchange and music competition variety show, the popularity continues to reach the top, and the appeal of the popular IP is still powerful; on the other hand, Zhang Songwen was found in the slow variety show track and formed an unscripted improvisational reality show "Splendid Garden", which is unique with reality, pyrotechnics and Zhang Songwen's personal charm, although the popularity is slow but has great potential;
But today's Mango TV is facing a bottleneck in its development. On the evening of April 21, Mango Supermedia announced its financial report for the first quarter of 2024, with an operating income of 3.324 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.21%, an operating profit of 547 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.69%, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 472 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13.85%.
This data is a good start from the revenue side, but behind the decline in net profit is a change that has a greater impact on performance. Affected by the change of preferential corporate income tax policies, it is necessary to pay corporate income tax at a rate of roughly 15% from 2024, and the company recognized an increase of 87.9922 million yuan in income tax expenses in the first quarter compared with the same period last year, resulting in a year-on-year decline in after-tax profits.
According to the financial report of Mango Supermedia, 2023 is the last year for major taxpayers such as Happy Sunshine under Mango Supermedia to be exempted from income tax. In 2024, Mango Supermedia will most likely face hundreds of millions of yuan in tax increases, and the net profit margin will be tighter than last year.
After the "weaning" of tax incentives in the past decade, Mango Supermedia will also face the intensification of competition in the entire industry. Today, the advantages of content transfusion from Hunan Satellite TV are no longer as good as those at the beginning of the platform's establishment, and the competition situation in the general environment faced by the company is not optimistic. The year 2024 will be a "stress test" for Mango Supermedia, and it will be necessary to "complete the evolution in the challenge" by itself.
Mango performance in 2023: full of hidden worries under the glamour
Whether it is in terms of the performance of the content of the drama series or the performance of the entire industry, 2023 is a year of recovery and recovery of the entire film and television media industry, another representative of the long video industry, iQiyi, has achieved the best performance in history, Lighthouse Professional Edition, and the overall effective playback mentioned in the Yunhe data report has also risen, although emerging formats such as micro-short dramas have created new competition, but it is also a year in which the irreplaceable value of the long video platform is highlighted.
The challenges faced by Mango Supermedia can also be glimpsed from the 2023 annual report. Since its listing, Mango Supermedia has been known for its stable profits year after year, but in 2022, Mango Supermedia's revenue and net profit will both decline to 13.977 billion and 1.806 billion, which actually means that the performance comparison in 2023 is a relatively low performance year. On this basis, let's take a closer look at the results of Mango Supermedia in 2023:
The annual operating income was 14.628 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of only 4.66%, which was lower than the 15.356 billion yuan in 2021, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 3.556 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 90.73%, but most of them came from non-recurring profits and losses such as government subsidies and income tax policy changes, and the net profit after deducting non-recurring profits and losses was 1.695 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.70%, which was even lower than that in 2020.
Therefore, Mango Supermedia's overall performance in 2023 will only be a "slight recovery", and neither revenue nor net profit will return to the level of 2021. On the other hand, this is already the result of Mango Supermedia's efforts in the external market in 2023.
In 2023, Mango TV successfully joined the Taobao 88VIP membership system, vigorously promoting its membership scale to reach 66.53 million by the end of 2023, an increase of about 12.16% compared with 59.16 million in 2022, and Mango TV's annual membership income in 2023 reached 4.315 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.23%. In other words, in the case of short-term high membership growth brought about by joining Taobao88VIP, the growth rate of Mango TV's membership revenue did not play a role in supporting performance growth, and in 2024, Mango TV's membership business will no longer have the short-term growth momentum of joining Taobao88VIP, and the growth momentum will return to the appeal of the overall drama content of the platform.
On the other hand, Mango TV's advertising business, which has been performing well, continues to decline under the pressure of the industry market.
In 2022, the company's advertising revenue will be 3.994 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 26.77%, and in 2023, the advertising business will achieve an operating income of 3.532 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 11.57%. From the perspective of the industry as a whole, 2023 should be a year of improvement in the external environment - big data, on April 28, the State Administration for Market Regulation released data showing that in 2023, advertising business revenue will be 1312.07 billion yuan, an increase of 17.5% over the previous year, and the annual Internet advertising revenue will be 719.06 billion yuan, an increase of 33.4% over the previous year;
Therefore, uncovering the data behind each one, it can be found that Mango TV's performance list in 2023 is not as good as it appears - the advertising business, which is supported by the company's past performance, has not been able to stop the decline, and the membership business still only achieves 10% revenue growth in the case of 88VIP, a short-term growth event, and the performance of revenue and non-net profit data is not as good as in 2021, and 2023 is the last year of the company's preferential tax policy.
In this case, it is obviously more difficult for Mango TV to maintain stable growth in performance in 2024.
The current mango still lacks courage and a sense of urgency
According to the financial report, "Head IPs such as "Riding the Wind 2023" and "Overcoming Thorns Season 3" have stabilized the investment market of variety show advertising, and "Going to a Windy Place" and "Camp with Love" have set a new record for the amount of investment and the number of project cooperation customers in the company's dramas in the past three years. "Combined with the actual case, Mango TV's own head content investment appeal is good, so why is it difficult to turn into the company's overall revenue growth?
In a word, Reading Yujun believes that Mango TV relies too much on its own advantages in the variety show section, which leads to the company's emphasis on advertising business much higher than the membership business, and Mango TV's member ARPU has been at a low position in the industry for a long time;
So why not really walk on two legs and vigorously develop the drama section? Largely because of the cost advantage of Mango TV, it fundamentally inherits the program production advantage from Hunan Satellite TV, and in the field of dramas, the entire market has changed greatly from the early stage of production under the active entry of the other two long video giants, and Mango TV needs to pay much greater investment cost and difficulty than variety show content if it wants to catch up with its peers with "quality and quality".
Mango TV is not unaware of this, but perhaps out of consideration to ensure the continuity of performance and profitability, its countermeasures are all "low-cost"-
The opening of the Monsoon Theater for trial and error in innovative themes was implemented in the context of the reform of Hunan Satellite TV's weekly theater, and the final content quality varied from high to low, without forming a continuous output force;
After the integration of dual stations will be launched in 2022, the empowerment of "Golden Eagle Solo Theater" is essentially a continuation of the past Taiwanese dramas, but the current drama competition pattern is no longer the past stage of competition for TV stations, simply put, the number of big dramas is still far from enough;
The "Damang Plan" tried to overtake in the corners of the short drama, but in reality, the thunder was heavy and the rain was small, and it was impossible to replace the multiple income support effect of the head drama.
On April 26, the Mango Four Platform Spring Investment Promotion Conference was held in Changsha, announcing more than 100 dramas, variety shows, galas and other content, from which you can also see Mango's content planning in 2024.
In terms of variety shows, the N generation of variety shows include "Singer 2024", "The Sound of Life: Hong Kong Philharmonic Season 2", "Time Concert", "Overcoming Thorns: Double Star Season", "Captain Season for the First Career", etc.; Rubik's Cube New World" and so on.
Whether it is the size of the lineup, diversity, theme innovation and other perspectives, Mango's layout in variety shows is still the top in the industry.
The important projects in terms of dramas are "National Beauty", "Water Dragon Yin", "Alley People", "Long Music" and so on. Overall, these four major dramas have a good configuration, and there is a high probability that they will have a place in their respective schedule competition. But one of the problems is that the number of big dramas of the same specification is too small, and dramas such as "National Colors" may still be broadcast in early 2025, and Mango TV's layout in the drama section is still weak.
"National Beauty" directed by Ding Ziguang, written by Zhang Yuanang, starring Yang Zi and Li Xian, tells the story of ancient female businessmen and entrepreneurs, and Yang Zi and Li Xian's previous cooperation in the modern idol drama "Dear Love" is one of the annual hits.
"Water Dragon Yin" Luo Yunxi starring, Xiao Shunyao, Ao Ziyi, Fang Yilun as the leading male lead, Bao Shangen, Chen Yao, Lin Yun as the leading female lead, Xu Zhengxi, Wang Yilun, Xie Binbin, Jiang Zhenyu, Bai Shu, Li Jiahao special guest starring, Yang Shize special starring fantasy martial arts drama, adapted from Teng Ping's novel "Thousand Tribulation Eyebrows". This lineup can be called a "high match" with the same type of theme, all the "male gods in ancient costumes" gather together, the original novel and "Lotus Tower" are both written by Teng Ping, and the play is expected to be launched in 2025.
"Alley People" is a realistic drama directed by Zhang Kaizhou and produced by Noon Sunshine. Yan Ni, Li Guangjie, Guo Xiaodong, Jiang Xin, Fan Chengcheng, Guan Xiaotong, Wang Anyu starring. It tells the story of the late 70s of the 20th century, in an alley in the family area of Suzhou Cotton Mill, there were three families, the Zhuang family, the Lin family and the Wu family, and the changes of the times have turned the fate of the three parents and children upside down. The cast is strong, the production team is of a high standard, and it is also a big drama with more highlights in the follow-up Mango TV, but there are many themes of the same type in recent years, and whether it can break through the routine remains to be seen after it is launched.
The costume suspense drama "Long Music" is adapted from Fenghuangqi's novel "Chang'an Bronze Sparrow", directed by Wang Wei, starring Ding Yuxi, Deng Enxi, Mao Zijun, Xiao Yan, and Song Fangyuan.
In addition to the lack of quantity, compared with last year's Mango TV's more out-of-the-circle head dramas "Go to a Windy Place", "Apocalypse", "Ask the Boundless", "Da Song Juvenile Chronicles 2", in the coming year, "National Beauty", "Water Dragon Yin", "Alley People", "Long Music" and other head dramas are currently a bit "more than enough configuration, not enough novelty". The main actors and creators are all first-line lineups that have frequently exploded in recent years, but judging from the introduction of the content themes that have been revealed so far, most of them are areas that have been explored more in recent years.
For example, the ancient women in "The Glory of the Country" started a business, which has been a common element of costume dramas in recent years, which will test whether "The Glory of the Country" can jump out of the creative logic of the same theme of "wearing costume skins and forcibly stuffing modern values", and shoot some different styles, and the male protagonist in "Water Dragon Yin" is also quite similar to Luo Yunxi's "black belly crazy criticism" in "Long Moon Embers"; Going to a Windy Place" and "Apocalypse" have obvious differences.
In addition to a few big dramas, Mango Supermedia has put a lot of investment in short dramas. The annual report mentions that in 2024, the company will reserve more than 80 film and television dramas and 100 micro-short dramas, and in the latest "Investor Relations Activity Record", it is mentioned that since 2024, the "Damang Plan" has fully entered the field of small program dramas, reasonably planned the production of a series of projects, and met the differentiated needs of users in novel forms and rich types.
So judging from the results, Mango TV still does not have the courage to achieve qualitative change with high investment and break through the status quo. It stands to reason that Mango Supermedia is not without capital to support Mango TV to take a step forward, the company has a large amount of cash left on its books, and the monetary funds in 2024Q1 will reach more than 11.5 billion yuan, and the 2023 annual dividend will only pay 10 shares and dividends of 1.8, and the low dividend has been complained by many investors. With a lot of cash on hand, why not be bold enough to jump into the content space and get out of the current bottleneck?
Of course, from another point of view, this is because whenever strategic investment is increased and transferred, it will face uncontrollable risks from the market. But for Mango Supermedia,It's almost time to have to "trial and error",All kinds of advantages in the past、Preferential treatment will eventually fade away,After fully and directly responding to market competition,Will there be a lot of time left for Mango TV?
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