The daily activity of "Lone Ranger" screens has dropped sharply, but "selling oneself" cannot stop the decline of live broadcasts

Yingke's choice may be mixed with some helplessness, but it is also a microcosm of the entire live broadcast industry.

Original title: Live broadcast down,"Lone Ranger" Yingke is difficult to stop the industry's decline

in just a year, live broadcast has been reduced from a darling of the capital market to a foil for Short Video. Compared with the financing boom in 2016, more topics in the live broadcast industry this year are reshuffle. Yingke's selling to Xuanya International may be the beginning.

2016 is called the first year of live broadcasting. Under the tide of mobile Internet, a large number of live broadcasting platforms have been born one after another. With the formation of the "Thousand Broadcast Wars" pattern, live broadcasts have penetrated into the daily lives of many people and have also changed the life patterns of some "grassroots".

As live broadcasts continue to penetrate into users, it was the helpless Yingke who reached the peak of the live broadcast industry in 2016. However, the popularity of the market has deteriorated sharply since 2017, until Yingke suddenly announced that he would "sell himself" a few days ago, which once again made the live broadcast industry, which is gradually experiencing cold weather, become the focus of attention from the outside world.

The industry is not only concerned about Yingke's future direction, but also what major changes will happen to the live broadcast industry after it hands over its top spot.

Rise and decline 2016 was

a critical year for the development of the live broadcast industry. During this year, countless live broadcast platforms emerged, and industry competition gradually turned into a chaotic battle.

In the live broadcast chaos, there are many rich and powerful people: representatives of the "rich second generation" such as Zanthoxylum Live Broadcast and Laima Live Broadcast; representatives of the "big money" such as Fast Hand (Short Video, Live Broadcast Dual Platform) and Panda TV; representatives of "Social Networking" such as YY Live Broadcast and Momo Live Broadcast.

The reporter found that among the two top echelons in the live broadcast industry, only Yingke is a "lonely hero" with no background or background. Since its launch in May 2015, Yingke has been playing the user card and using various tricks to attack users. The relatively smooth user experience and high participation allowed Yingke to attract a large number of users in a relatively short period of time.

Perhaps many people are not unfamiliar with the term "national live broadcast", and this term was coined by Yingke. Without strong capital support, Yingke's initial tactic was to focus on amateur live broadcasts. Using a mobile phone to see the daily life of another stranger, this desire to spy has become the key for Yingke to open the user's heart.

Because of this, Yingke has stepped into the trend of national live broadcasting. With several successful offline activities, its user base has increased rapidly and its financing has become smoother and smoother.

According to statistics, Yingke's previous financing situation is as follows:

In June 2015, Yingke received several million yuan of seed round investment;

In July 2015, Yingke received 10 million yuan of angel round financing from A8 Music;

In November 2015, Yingke received tens of millions of yuan of Series A investments from Saifu Fund, Jinsha Venture Capital, Zihui Venture Capital and Zhu Xiaohu;

In January 2016, Yingke received an RMB 80 million A+ investment led by Kunlun Wanwei. Kunlun Wanwei held 18% of the investment. Yingke's valuation at this time was 378 million yuan;

In September 2016, Kunlun Wanwei transferred 3% of Yingke's equity to Guangxin Capital, with a total price of 210 million yuan, corresponding to a valuation of 100% equity of RMB 7 billion yuan.

With its valuation exceeding US$1 billion, Yingke took the lead in becoming the first "unicorn" in the live broadcast industry. According to Yingke data, Yingke (around September 2016) had more than 130 million registered users and 15 million daily active users.

It is not difficult to see from the above data that Yingke is ahead of other competitors in the industry by large advantages in terms of financing situation and number of users. It can be said that Yingke, who fought the world alone, achieved a counterattack.

With capital, the gameplay naturally becomes different. Yingke took advantage of the popularity of live broadcasts to spend a lot of money on marketing, and the advertising intensity became increasingly powerful. It placed advertisements in front of popular dramas on multiple video websites such as iQiyi and Tencent Video, telling users,"You are ugly, you sleep first, I will be beautiful and I will live live." The brainwashing slogan became the second popular phrase in the live broadcast industry after "national live broadcast".

In addition, Yingke has also begun experiments in various live broadcast formats such as live broadcast + stars, live broadcast + variety shows, and many stars 'live debuts were dedicated to Yingke. Including Fu Yuanhui's live broadcast exceeded 10 million viewers in one hour, breaking the record for simultaneous online viewers; Liu Tao, Jiang Xin, Wang Kai and other leading stars of "Ode to Joy" were guests to promote the new drama;BigBang's participation even made 6 million female fans shed tears.

Under the repeated bombardment of various strategies, Yingke's position in the live broadcast industry has become relatively solid. At this time (as of December 2016), Yingke's users have exceeded 140 million, and daily active users have exceeded 17 million. However, the peak also means a watershed, and the decline of Yingke also begins.

First, since December 2016, live broadcast has ushered in new regulations from relevant departments. Strict requirements have greatly restricted the content and methods of live broadcast, resulting in a cold snap in the hot industry. Almost all live broadcast platforms have been affected to varying degrees. Yingke has not been able to survive alone. However, the real change officially began in January 2017.

According to the monitoring data of Analysys Qianfan, it can be seen that since January 2017, the number of monthly active users on many top-ranked live broadcast platforms, including Yingke, YYLive, Zanthoxylum Live, etc., has dropped significantly, ranging from hundreds of thousands to several million during a month.

Among them, Yingke experienced the largest decline, with monthly active users dropping from 1,686.28 to 1,386.28, a direct decrease of 3 million monthly active users. Such a huge decline and no alleviation trend have caused Yingke to lose his first throne step by step.

Second, in addition to strict supervision, there is also an objective factor that Yingke is unable to reverse, that is, its diversion capacity is close to the ceiling. Wang Chuanzhen, an analyst at Analysys International Interactive Entertainment, believes that the reason why Yingke cannot be maintained and continues to decline is that the industry's diversion has ended here, and the rapid growth in the previous period is no longer possible to continue at present. The industry environment is due to this, and so is Yingke.

Third, one of the characteristics of Yingke that is different from other live broadcast platforms is that it does not follow the traditional "guild model." In the era of PC live streaming, guilds are the backing of many big-name anchors. In addition to operating anchors, their main role is to use "family" endorsements to create popularity. MC Tianyou's fame in YY has a lot to do with the guild behind him.

However, Yingke initially followed the path of amateur live broadcasts and did not directly promote individual popular anchors. This could save companies money in the early stage, but when it came to bare-shirtless competition, it became a weakness. Without a relatively complete anchor business strategy, it will be easy for opponents to poach others, and the loss of anchors will also lead to the loss of users.

Selling oneself, causing

great changes Just as the outside world is waiting for Yingke, who is already in trouble, to make more changes, Yingke also sent some signals to the outside world. Yingke founder and CEO Feng Yousheng revealed in an interview with Tencent Finance in March that Yingke will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the field of mobile games live broadcasts in 2017, and will also invest in the field of Short Video.

However, two months later, what we waited for was not the relevant "plan". One news shocked the already silent live broadcast industry like a depth bomb-Yingke and Xuanya International launched a merger. This news was confirmed in early May.

According to the "Announcement on the Progress of Deferment, Resumption and Suspension of Major Asset Restructuring" issued by Xuanya International, the reorganization target is Beijing Millywood Network Technology Co., Ltd., and it is expected to acquire no less than 50% of the equity. Millywood is Yingke's company. Simply put, Yingke is going to "sell himself"(not 100% change of ownership).

Xuanya International is a listed public relations company. Based on the closing price on the last trading day before the suspension, Xuanya International's valuation is approximately 7.2 billion yuan. The fact that a company with a valuation of 7.2 billion yuan wanted to acquire a company with a valuation of 7 billion yuan successfully attracted attention from inside and outside the industry.

For a time, doubts about Yingke's choice emerged one after another, mainly including the following:

1. How much money can Xuanya pay for the merger of two companies with similar valuations? How much money will Yingke lose?

2. Although the live broadcast industry is in a cold situation, Yingke is still the number one in the industry. Why are you eager to "sell yourself"? Why is it not a giant like BAT?

3. Is the trend of live streaming about to retire and Yingke executives cashed out in advance?

On June 9, news showed that Xuanya's plan to acquire Yingke had not yet been determined. Therefore, it is currently unknown to the outside world whether Xuanya International has the strength to acquire 50% of Yingke's shares in cash. It is also unknown whether all Yingke executives will cash in and leave. However, what is certain is that the negative impact of this integration will definitely outweigh the positive impact for Yingke, and Yingke's valuation may be affected as a result.

Due to the entry of Xuanya, Yingke's live broadcast business is likely to change. Because Xuanya, which has its public relations business as its core, is also deploying its advertising business, and it chose to acquire Yingke, probably because of the needs of advertising marketing. However, this kind of content does not seem to be something that live broadcast users like to see, and user loss is a foregone conclusion.

This is exactly the case. The reporter obtained Yingke's April data from Analysys Qianfan, which shows that Yingke's number of active users, application launches, and product usage time are all declining. Among them, active users are declining by more than 12.25%, while the other two data declines are even more alarming, with 23.06% and 23.16% respectively.

This downward trend continued after news of the integration of Yingke and Xuanya came out in April. As of now, the number of daily users of Yingke is still gradually decreasing, and as of June 5, the number of daily users has dropped to 1.1028 million. Compared with the magnitude of 17 million daily activities in December last year, this huge drop may far exceed Feng Yousheng's previous forecast.

In fact, Yingke and Xuanya had tried the live broadcast + advertising cooperation model before this. It is understood that on March 29, Yingke and Xuanya established a joint venture company to develop various advertising business models suitable for live broadcast platforms. In other words, Yingke has already made an attempt to live broadcast + advertising. During last year's "Double 11" period, the success of Yingke's live broadcast + e-commerce cooperation with Tmall may be the reason for Yingke to choose this commercialization.

With the integration of Yingke and Xuanya, the pattern of the live broadcast industry has also undergone some changes. According to Analysys data, Yingke has not only given up its position as the industry leader, but has even dropped to third place in the entertainment live broadcast field. When your opponent is at a disadvantage, it is an opportunity for you to grow. Just as Yingke declined, YYLive, Zanthoxylum and YiLive were busy thinking of ways to reverse the decline.

Even so, issues such as stricter supervision, difficulty in monetization, and slowing or even declining user growth are still problems that the entire live broadcast industry needs to face. After all, Yingke has no strong backing, and by choosing to "sell himself", he can at least get a certain amount of cash flow. This may be the best solution that a "lone ranger" can think of. On platforms such as Zanthoxylum Live Broadcast, One-Live Broadcast, and YYLive, as long as user traffic is considerable, there is no need to worry too much about revenue issues. This is the advantage of having a background.

Yingke's choice may be mixed with some helplessness, but it is also a microcosm of the entire live broadcast industry. Although Panda TV and Zanthoxylum Live Broadcast have received financing in the live broadcast industry recently, it still cannot conceal the fact that the live broadcast trend in 2017 has passed and dozens of live broadcast platforms have been shut down. In this case, the pressure on small platforms will increase and increase, and even large platforms such as Yingke will also show signs of fatigue. Therefore, there will be more changes in the live broadcast of the war.

Editor: jessica