Station B is not so bad

Author | Luo Lixuan

After the Hong Kong stock market on September 8, Bilibili released the performance report of the second quarter of 2022 as of June 30. After the financial report was released, the topic at the second quarter of# B. The topic of net loss of 2 billion# once rushed on Weibo hot search. The next day, the stock price of station B fell all the way, and it had fallen 17%at noon.

For station B itself, the problem is actually those old problems. In recent years, Station B has been looking for a balance between user growth and realization of profitability. This quarter is still stable in growth and commercialization. If it was one or two years ago, this result was not a big problem, but this year the entire market was more concerned about the latter.

Specifically, the number of households in Station B exceeded 300 million for the first time, an increase of 29%year -on -year, and the average daily active users reached 83.5 million. Revenue increased by 9% to 4.91 billion yuan year -on -year, but the growth rate was recorded low, and the losses expanded by 79.3% year -on -year to 2.014 billion yuan.

However, don't be too pessimistic. According to the financial report, despite the continued losses, the current cash+deposit+investment of station B currently 24.9 billion yuan, short -term loans of 1.45 billion, convertible bonds 16.9 billion, and short -term cash flow pressure.

In the long run, the income in the second quarter meets expectations. In the future, it will mainly operate the growth of user scale and the dividend brought by the expansion.

Turnive reduction and efficiency are unfavorable

The income of station B is mainly composed of advertising, games, live broadcasts and e -commerce.

In the second quarter, the advertising revenue of station B was 1.158 billion yuan, an increase of 10.4%year -on -year, which was actually good compared to the peers.

The game is worrying that the revenue of the game in the second quarter fell 15%year -on -year and a decrease of 22.8%month -on -month. In addition, the game R & D investment is the big head of the cost of station B. In addition, it is still continuing to acquire external studios. However, these games are still under research and development. Coupled with market competition and version number impact, it is estimated that it will still be station B in the short term. Important cost center.

The live broadcast is also the value -added service, which is the most stable business of station B this quarter, with a year -on -year increase of 2.1 billion.

Station B of this quarter of e -commerce and other revenue was 601 million yuan, a year -on -year increase of 4%. Because self -operated e -commerce contribution to the overall revenue is limited, and this income depends mainly on the two -dimensional core users, I believe that the revenue fluctuations will not be too great in the second half of the year.

Station B2 income ratio (picture comes from station B financial report

To put it simply, this loss of Station B has expanded. On the one hand, game revenue is down, and on the other hand, while reducing costs and efficiency, it is impossible to give up the investment in high -quality content and user growth.

In the second quarter, the operating cost of station B increased to 4.17 billion yuan. Among them, due to the increase in income division and content costs, the income division cost reached 2.068 billion yuan, an increase of 18%year -on -year. Among the total expenditures of Station B cost, the income division of income is the highest, which is about 30%.

But Station B has also worked hard to reduce costs and increase efficiency. The financial report shows that through technical optimization, the market and sales costs of the quarter decreased by 16%year -on -year, and the cost of the quarterly server and bandwidth units decreased by 37%year -on -year.

In other words, station B did not give up user growth because of cost reduction and efficiency. In the financial report conference call, Chen Rui, CEO of station B, said that growth is still the most important job in station B, whether it is the growth of users or income growth. In addition, MAU reached 400 million targets in 2023.

At the same time, at the conference call at the beginning of this year, the timetable given by the management is that Station B will achieve NON GAAP profit and loss balance in 2024.

Dolphin Investment Research believes that the main problem of this financial report on station B is the revenue guidance for the third quarter. Compared with previous years, this time, this time is significantly lower than expected. The revenue guidance range in the third quarter of station B was 5.6-5.8 billion, which was significantly lower than the market's unanimous expectations of 5.92 billion.

"Young Man" selling point weakened

The market response is so bad. To put it plainly, it is because the "young man" economic business model, or business stories shaped by station B are in serious challenges. In the past, station B was able to attract young people, and it was gradually fading.

The first is that B is significantly reduced investment in the previous drama content that attracts high -stick users in the past. According to the financial report, the current self -made content (PUGV) of station B accounts for 95%of the overall playback time of station B. In the past, the drama of the most loyal fans of station B has driven the core of the cultural core of station B and condensed station B. Essence

According to the rules of the Japanese animation Fan Drama every quarter, station B should have been launched in the new quarter of the new quarter in July, but until the end of July, there are only five. Now open a new index, there are even children's "Pig Page" and "Cat and Mouse", and "Dekai Altman", which are children's "Pig Page". For a long time, the B station, known as the "Buy Fan Magic", has the most complete genuine drama content on the entire platform.

Some of the drama indexes today

In addition, station B is also a distribution center for users' two videos and stalks. Although the users have also obtained a lot of new stalks from PUGC content, they like new characters, such as the popular Tangoz "Stall Dad" from "New Generation". , National Line "Mountain City Xiaoli Shun" and Lou Chang "Lahong Sang", but the original cultural rich mine has been reduced. Whether the new content engine can top it will be a problem. Secondly, the two -dimensional game has been snatched by "The original God". The game of station B is still eating the old books of "Fate Grand Order", "Princess Link" and "Azur Line". The new game response is mediocre. However, the good news is that since the game version number is restored, Station B has won 4 new game version number, and 6 games will log in to overseas markets (2 of which are self -developed games), so the game in the second half of the year Income should be more progress than the first half of the year.

Maybe you will ask, is there any problem with animation and games? Do you watch short videos and China TV Video?

The key is that this quarter occupies a value -added service with a total income of 43% this quarter, the value -added services that mainly rely on live rewards and large membership subscriptions are inseparable from the core users of Station B (most of them are consumer animation, game two Support of dimension content).

As for the subscription of large members, although Station B is developing the "post -90s wedding agency" and "New Generation of Rap" and other homemade variety shows, its degree of breaking and powder absorption is far less than the "King Ranking of the Kings" in the previous quarter. "Spy through the Home". According to the data released by station B, the total number of large members in the second quarter reached 21 million, a year -on -year increase of 19%. The growth rate was lower than the monthly living and the growth rate of official members. The growth of core users was not so fast.

Secondly, the live broadcast, the situation is relatively better, because this year, Station B is committed to promoting more UP main broadcast live broadcast, and the PUGV content and live content are realized. Therefore Increased, live paid users increased by 70%year -on -year.

At station B, the content of the game is always the most likely to attract the reward, and the self -employed game of station B before can realize the Grand Slam of self -research, spontaneous, self -announcement, and even earning rewards. Now, this advantage is also weakening.

The other is the advertising business that Station B has always wanted to improve. In the past, the most important selling point for advertisers and brands to facing advertisers and brands was that it was accurate enough to attract new generations of young people to become customers of TAs. If Station B faces the attractiveness of young people and is the same as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, which has higher monetary efficiency, what is the unique competitiveness of station B?

In addition, the situation of the broader market is not optimistic, and the COO Li Yan also emphasized at the call conference on the conference call that the global macroeconomic changes and the epidemic have repeatedly affected the advertising industry. The budget of the advertisers has shrunk significantly during this time, and the launch is more cautious. The development of emerging industries at this stage is also more difficult than ever.

QUEST Mobile data shows that the top three industry advertising costs in 2021 are "online shopping, online games and beauty care", while station B has more advantageous digital advertisements. The overall industry budget is not high. Users are relatively lack of purchasing power in digital products and cars.

Therefore, even if the company is achieving a double -digit growth, the market is worried that they may lose their core competitiveness and it is difficult to achieve positive circulation.

New advantage that is despised

However, there is a sentence, even if the opportunity to burn money for many companies now, they cannot break through the restrictions of market bottlenecks to grow. Growth has never been a flood beast, and it is the flood beast without burning money.

Many people ignore the point that the expansion of station B is successful and the investment is reasonable.

We wrote before that Station B is vigorously promoting the StoryMode mode (here is the link "I was shaken by station B"), allowing users to speed up the frequency and speed of the video, and immerse themselves to watch the video content to get extra extra User duration and more efficient advertising display forms. Moreover, this is actually conducive to the Lord with small fans. As long as there is good content, it can also obtain a considerable amount of playback through algorithm distribution.

Of course, because of a large number of newcomers, and the influx of content creators in Douyin and Xiaohongshu, many users complained that the problem of "shaking" and homogeneous content in station B.

This test is actually the "self -cleaning" ability of station B. The "invasion" of external elements is not fresh. From 2018, the earth smell invaded station B. Social shake, flower turning hand, eagle Gao Fei, GIAO, all kinds of "earth flavor" Get a not low playback on station B. However, the fate of these elements is integrated into the station B, which is used by ghost animalization, sink, and combination, and has become a material for various short videos.

UP Master Dong Yongbang Pigeon is deeply affected by the slogan "Oli Give"

Since 2020, Station B has vigorously invited star, actors and idols to settle in, and began to cause new discussions: Will the stars invade the traffic on the head? Obviously not, there are even some stars who start to use station B as a content position. For example, after Wang Ye became popular in "Sister who rides the wind and waves", he sent VLOG and good things to Station B. , Once became the most actress for the goods. Also, when the idol draft was still very popular, Kun Yin Entertainment even leaned on the daily VLOG of the trainee at station B to attract the fan group. Unprecedented closeness.

Therefore, in the past, Station B had sufficient self -cleaning ability, so that new elements entering the community run in accordance with the rules of station B, so that under the premise of enriching their content ecology, they will not make the community culture taste. Now just say, what exactly is the algorithm of station B? In the past, the tone of station B relied on a large number of operations and maintenance. If the efficiency of distribution is not high enough and the distribution is not accurate, then the "self -cleaning" ability of station B will have risks.

In addition, if it is pulled on the short video track, station B can be said to be the rare, even the only one that can achieve explosion or even breaking the circle through the high -quality content itself, without relying on amazing events or traffic characters.

Although there are mixed compliments, it is undeniable that in the second quarter of this year, the content of "Back to the Village for Three Days, Erye has good internal consumption" was burst into fire. After leaving Zhu, the director Xiao Ce also achieved several explosive models by shooting the rural life of his hometown. Classmate He has also become a college student who loves technology and loves digital content, and has become the "biggest beneficiary of the 5G era".

This shows that the content production mechanism of station B can still cultivate and screen new content that users love to watch, and still be very effective in increasingly generalized user groups.

The problem now is that station B has not found a way to better improve the commercial value of these new users. As mentioned earlier, a set of business narratives at Station B before were described for young people, especially young people who prefer the second dimension culture; now, when station B is competing with Douyin and Xiaohongshu on the same stage. At that time, it is not good enough to make money, but it is not effective enough.

E -commerce is obviously not good at Station B. The transaction involves bitter and tired details. Even Xiaohongshu was put on hold, and recently regained it. The most promising is advertising.

At the financial report, the COO Li Yi of station B proposed a new plan: further open ecology seeking cooperation with external platforms. She said that Station B has now reached preliminary cooperation with Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo e -commerce platforms. try. And then actively try to have different levels of cooperation with platforms such as all brands and living consumption.

However, you will find that this business model as a traffic sellers, Xiaohongshu, Kuaishou, and Douyin have been doing it, but they have decided to leave the transaction on their own platform at different development stages. Use the trillion GMV blind investors' eyes. How to win these mature opponents in the more and more cruel world? This may first need to do a bit of hard work.

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