Can station B make money?

The chairman of BiliBili company and CEO Chen Rui said at the analyst meeting last night , Will not change 2024 To achieve the goal of profit and loss balance under non general accounting standards （ stay 4Q21 When the financial report is made ）.

The epidemic prevention and control in the first half of this year only had a phased impact on individual businesses , But it does not affect the basic business , It is expected that the previous growth rate will resume in the second half of the year , Video and cultural consumption of young people are still the general trend .

Since the second half of last year , The whole Internet industry seems to have a feeling that thousands of sails have gone through . From stock price fluctuations to frequent regulatory policies , The market's confidence in the Internet industry is also declining . Affected by international environment , This stage is also the downturn of the whole zhonggai stock , Or the value reconstruction period .

According to the statistics of China Communications Research Institute , By the end of this year 3 End of month , The total market value of listed Internet enterprises is 9.9 One trillion , Compared with the end of last year 20.2%. As large as Ali 、 tencent 、 byte , We have to put cost reduction and efficiency increase at the top of the company's strategic adjustment .

But at the moment, , At the policy level, the Internet is blowing warm air , For example, the platform economy must be affirmed 、 Digital economy ; Support compliance enterprises to list at home and abroad ; Distribute game version numbers in batches （B Station temporary acquisition 3 individual ） etc. , Even the market hears that ant financial will restart IPO.

Whether the stock of zhonggai has reached the bottom rebound stage ？B Can we accelerate the commercialization under this cycle , To realize its green cloud aspiration ？

Cost reduction and efficiency increase are not budget cutting

From the first quarterly report of zhonggai shares , While reducing costs and increasing efficiency , Depict new highlights for the market 、 New concerns , It has become a common phenomenon , Either with B Iqiyi in the same field 、 Well quickly , Or advertising 、 Online retailers 、 Alibaba and Tencent, which have the right to speak in the game industry . The recent general rally in these stocks , There are macro policy environmental factors , It is also inseparable from performance improvement .

Iqiyi announced its first profit in the first quarter , Both operating profit and net profit are positive , But it's in “ throttle ” The pen on the is a little hard .

In the first quarter, the total revenue fell year-on-year 9%（ Among them, the advertising camp shrinks 30%、 Member revenue rose slightly 4%） Under the circumstances , Its cost is reduced 16%（ Reduction of new episodes and other factors ）, marketing 、 The investment in R & D is 30-40% Year on year reduction .

On the other hand , When the number of paid members drops slightly year-on-year , Per member contribution income ARM There is a continuous increase , It indicates that the user value has been improved .

First quarter of Kwai Fu MAU Users reach 6 Billion , Both operating losses and net losses have narrowed considerably , Marketing and marketing have decreased year-on-year 18.6%, The corresponding marketing expense rate is as high as 23 A percentage point drop , It mainly controls the year-on-year growth of customer acquisition costs , It is obviously greater than the control force on a month on month basis .

Tencent's online advertising business revenue declined year on year in the first quarter 18%, The decline continued to expand compared with the previous quarter ; In the same period, Alibaba's advertising revenue, including merchants' commissions, grew zero year-on-year , Are not ideal . However, Alibaba cloud has been able to maintain a full fiscal year EBITA Weak profits . Ali is turning to the industrial Internet for gold , Show a faster pace than Tencent .

B One of the highlights of the station's performance in the first quarter is the significant growth in the number of users based on the control of marketing , It shows that the logic of user endogenous growth mechanism has been formed , Can rely less on marketing incentives . This is for B The station can double the number of users and balance profits and losses at the same time “ Hold each other back ” Our goal is very important .

Concrete , First quarter B standing MAU Monthly living 2.9 Billion , Year-on-year growth 31%;DAU Daily life has 7900 ten thousand , Year-on-year growth 32%; The average monthly paying users are 2700 ten thousand , Year-on-year growth 33%, The payment rate is close to 10%（ Including game payment 、 Live to play of the reward 、 Big member , Excluding e-commerce consumption ）.

From the perspective of growth rate ,MPU Pay more than DUA Diurnal activity , higher than MAU Monthly living , And DAU/MAU The viscosity is improved , This shows that the quality of users is improving .

According to management ,B The station currently has a TV terminal MAU reach 5000 ten thousand , Mainly concentrated in three 、 Four line city . Plus the whole MAU There are still tens of millions of PC End user , This straddle 、 The multi scene feature increases the user coverage , It also expands the opportunity for advertisers to launch multi screen linkage .

In mobile terminal ,Story Mode Mode video （ It can be understood as a short video with a bullet screen ） The playback volume has achieved a very strong growth , reach 84%. This kind of vertical screen short video is B The broadcast volume of the station's total video is nearly one quarter , In the same period last year, it was only about one tenth .

watch Story Mode Video and watching PUGV Users of medium and long videos are not separated 、 Separate , But the former effectively fills the fragmented scenario of user consumption , Enhanced stickiness . Management even expected , some time Story-Mode It will bring more incremental playback than now PUGV The number of plays .

These are not achieved by budget smashing the market .B The marketing expense rate of the station in the first quarter is 24.8%, Compared with the same period last year 25.6% It's down （ But marketing expenses have increased ）, Compared with the previous month 30.5% Compared with that, the decrease is obvious , In the first quarter, the market and sales cost decreased month on month 5.08 RMB .

Past quarters B Station marketing is mainly used for brand building and game distribution channels , At this stage, whether in advertisers 、 Content partners , Or in front of social consumers ,B The brand influence of the station has been successful , Leave some space for optimizing the marketing budget .

B Stand and play games 、 Do live 、 Make short videos 、 Make a documentary 、 Make your own animation , It seems that the starting point is very scattered , It costs a lot , But the underlying logic focuses on one thing ： Realize the natural growth of users through content enrichment and sense of community , Seek a breakthrough in commercialization such as advertising . Its strategic focus is always on the construction of core business , Or through a third party UP Lord , Or do it yourself .

The advertising business still has a bright future

B The main problem we encountered in the first quarter was the slowdown in revenue growth , The revenue of the current quarter reached 50.5 One hundred million yuan , Year-on-year growth 30%, Compared with the growth rate of single quarter revenue in the past three years 50% above .

The analysis reason , Mainly affected by epidemic prevention , Especially in the advertising and e-commerce business segments . The year-on-year growth rate of advertising in the first quarter was 46%, Previously, the advertising growth rate has been maintained at... For seven consecutive quarters 100% above , Most advertisers are delayed by epidemic prevention 、 Or reduce the delivery （B Home office is also a factor ）, The wait-and-see mood is obvious ; E-commerce is mainly affected by logistics performance .

As the epidemic prevention measures in Shanghai continued in the second quarter , The impact remains , therefore B The station gives a conservative guide to the second quarterly report , The revenue is expected to be 48.5-49.5 Billion yuan range , Namely, growth rate 10% about , It is expected to resume the previous growth rate from the second half of the year .

Does this mean that advertising B The star business is blocked ？ Especially considering Ali 、 Tencent, a large advertising company, has stagnated in the past six months 、 Even decline .

The overall look ,B Station advertising is still in its own rising channel , It is more than enough to outperform the online advertising market . There are several factors ：

One is DAU Is steadily approaching 1 Billion , This is often regarded as a golden watershed for online advertising platforms , And among users 86% by 35 Under the age of , Consumption power is relatively high ;

Two is B Standing on the advertising space is still relatively restrained , The flow of information is maintained at 5% Advertising load , And the patch advertising has not been released ;

Third, the advertising R & D algorithm is improving , R & D investment in the first quarter , In addition to self-developed games , Mainly invested in data and advertising technology ;

Fourth, cross screen delivery 、 Multi scene advertising space linkage will release more obvious effects in the future . These factors will partially offset the macroeconomic impact .

Especially for the last point ,B Station internal data shows 47% Of advertisers have cross product launch behavior , For example, when putting in brand advertising , Also put on the information flow effect advertisement , Also through the fireworks system about UP Main business order, etc .

It is because of the advertising potential in the future ,B Standing about 4 In January, it was released Story Mode Effect advertising , That is, short video native ads . With the increase of the playback volume of this part , Short video advertising, a mature advertising model with high conversion rate, will contribute more revenue .

Now look at ,Story Mode The space between advertising spaces is larger than that of Tiktok 、 Well quickly , Much looser , Not as dense as the pure short video platform . except Story Mode,B Station advertising also realizes the integration of multiple ends and multiple scenes , Include PC、 mobile phone 、iPad、TV etc. .

TV End user portraits can be compared with APP Form complementarities , The per capita consumption market is also higher ,TV There is also great room for growth in end advertising .

Netflix Netflix In the first quarter, the number of subscribers dropped month on month for the first time in nearly a decade , Great impact on market cognition . Simply raising the price of membership fees does not bring about a significant increase in income , It's stepping HBO、Disney+ The footsteps , Launch member advertising mode , With a view to new growth points .

From a global perspective , Online advertising is a high margin business , This is very important for the diversified business 、 The overall gross profit margin is not high B standing , It is very important to achieve the goal of break even . Its advertising gross profit margin increased in the first quarter .

future B Whether there will be long platform ads in station ads - The situation of mutual restriction of membership fees ？ Can't . These two modes are in B The station is on a parallel channel , Payment is mainly focused on games 、 Rewards and big members .

Big members are for watching fan dramas 、 Documentary and other self-made content , This part of the content does not use patch advertising , Instead, it uses the exclusive rights and interests of large members , Equivalent to direct pricing of content . By 3 end of the month ,B The number of large members of the station reaches 2010 ten thousand , Year-on-year growth 25%, This is a business that can be expected .

B The main commercial space of the station content will still be on the advertisement . People used to think about B Questions about the commercialization of the station mainly focus on ： This group of users is too young , Consumption decision-making power is not high , Can not support direct payment , And can not attract advertisers to pay the bill indirectly .

But now these users have changed , Advertisers' checkbooks don't lie , At the moment cars 、 Beauty advertisers are B The delivery on the station ranks among the top five , It shows that the consumption power behind is not supported by college students alone , The community must have infiltrated older people 、 Those who have more spending power and family decision-making power .

At the moment , The Internet policy level has given more relaxed space and positive signals , In the past, the share price that fell due to the impact of policies is rebounding , This round of reshuffle will leave investors pursuing long-term value behind , Confidence is being restored .

Under the general trend of reducing cost and increasing efficiency ,B The station's strategy is to continue to catch up with the previous revenue growth 、 Expand the scale of revenue 、 Increase gross profit , Instead of simply reducing costs to narrow losses , Break even . On the road of commercialization ,B The station can still firmly believe that this group of growing young users .

source ： American Stock Research Institute