ST Smart spent 1.6 billion yuan to cultivate "Video Bar" and still remained interested in serious losses

In the case of listed companies arranging live broadcasts, ST Wisdom seems to be a tragic existence. Old investors in the A-share market are probably no strangers to the "big wisdom" of stock trading software. In the first quarter of 2015,"Big Wisdom" even became one of the "Top Ten Bulls". With the subsequent punishment of Xinpai for violations and the failure to restructure Xiangcai Securities, Great Wisdom fell into a quagmire.

Original title: *ST Wisdom: Being abused by live broadcasts and losing blood, but still interested

in them. In the case of listed companies arranging live broadcasts, *ST Wisdom seems to be a tragic existence.

Old investors in the A-share market are probably no strangers to the "big wisdom" of stock trading software. In the first quarter of 2015,"Big Wisdom" even became one of the "Top Ten Bulls". With the subsequent punishment of Xinpai for violations and the failure to restructure Xiangcai Securities, Great Wisdom fell into a quagmire.

At a time when the wave of live broadcasts was booming, *ST Smart launched the "Video Bar" live broadcast platform in 2016 in an attempt to discover new profit points. However, the 2016 annual report shows that *ST Smart's "Video Bar", which cost nearly 1.6 billion yuan to cultivate, has suffered serious losses.

In June this year, *ST Smart stated in a reply to the exchange's inquiries that the company is still optimistic about the revolutionary upgrade brought by live video streaming to financial information services for the long term, and will carefully formulate corresponding investment and operation plans based on the company's overall operation plan in the next few years.

Nearly 1.4 billion yuan was paid for anchors and a huge loss of 1.7 billion

yuan *ST Smart's 2016 annual report shows that the net profit loss attributable to shareholders of listed companies in 2016 was 1.760 billion yuan, a decrease of 293.34% from the same period last year. At the same time, the 2017 quarterly report also showed that *ST Smart had a net loss of 76.5586 million yuan, compared with a loss of 168 million yuan in the same period last year.

One of the key reasons for such a bloody loss of *ST wisdom is actually live broadcast. In 2016, *ST Smart developed the "Video Bar" live broadcast platform. According to the company's plan at the time, it "aims at national live broadcast, focuses on developing and exploring the development direction of financial live broadcast platforms, and features 'financial live broadcast' and strives to combine live broadcast ecology with investment and financial management."

*ST Smart invited many talented people to participate in the live broadcast of "Video Bar", such as Wall Street figure Jim Rogers, brokerage person Li Daxiao, Hurun, founder of Hurun Report, and many other financial celebrities to participate in the live broadcast; in addition, Xu Zheng, Wang Ziwen and other entertainment stars have also become guests of "Video Bar".

The "Video Bar" business grew from scratch and once ranked 13th in the 2016 annual ranking of China's live broadcast apps by Cheetah Global Think Tank. However, the price paid is also huge. According to *ST Smart's 2016 annual report, its anchor's labor remuneration totaled 1.396 billion yuan; its advertising investment totaled 210 million yuan, and the recharge channel handling fee incurred by the video bar APP recharged smart coins was 11 million yuan, etc.

However, in the face of numerous cost inputs,"Video Bar" has a single revenue channel, and its main source of revenue is only user recharge. In 2016, the revenue of "Video Bar" was only 553 million yuan, far below the cost of various inputs, resulting in serious losses for the business.

Why is it difficult to do live broadcasts in the vertical domain?

Regarding future plans, *ST Wisdom said that it is still optimistic about the live broadcast business in the long term. However, from the company's tactical adjustments to the live broadcast business, it can be seen that it will spend money carefully in the field of "national live broadcast".

"In terms of the operation of C-end platforms, the company will reduce subsidies in the field of national live broadcasts, explore ways to transform national live broadcasts into financial scenarios, expand live broadcasts cooperation with B-end financial institutions, and explore new value-added service models."

Why is it not easy to do a beautiful financial live broadcast?

"I have been exposed to many live broadcast projects, but the common problem is that I can't make money." Internet investor Cao Haitao told reporters that the monetization model of live broadcasts is still relatively simple, and it is at a time when the entire industry is burning money to grab the market. Whether it is national live broadcasts or vertical field live broadcasts like financial live broadcasts, whether they can survive in fact, the key lies in the strength of the investors behind them.

In Cao Haitao's view, if you want to build a live broadcast platform, it is actually the investors that test them. "The first thing for investors is to have money to provide sufficient funds and ammunition for the live broadcast platform. The second is to have sufficient diversion capabilities. The third is to allow the live broadcast platform to form synergy with the overall strategy and business of the investor."

A more representative example is Tencent's investment in Douyu TV, which not only gives Douyu TV the confidence to burn money to grab the market, but also brings online traffic. Douyu TV's strength "game live broadcast" is exactly the same as Tencent's trump card game "King Glory"."Strong alliance. This is the "gold master" in the eyes of investors, and *ST Intelligence is obviously not so powerful in terms of capital, flow, and resources.

At 7 p.m. on July 8, the reporter turned on the live broadcast of "Video Bar". The most popular live program had less than 5000 viewers. At that time, Douyu was broadcasting the King's Glory Spring League finals live, with more than 2.9 million viewers.

Editor: Mary