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Tencent, who has been struggling for 8 years and has a lot of money, cannot resist it

Tech 2023-07-14 03:08:00 Source: Network
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The 'false fire' of the ear economy is cooling down again.Author | Peach CrispSource | Tiantian Finance 116For those who enjoy listening to books, your ears will be missing another 'old friend'

The 'false fire' of the ear economy is cooling down again.

Author | Peach Crisp

Source | Tiantian Finance 116

For those who enjoy listening to books, your ears will be missing another 'old friend'.

On July 5th, Tencent's audio platform Penguin FM released an offline announcement:The operation officially ceased on September 6th, and if there is still balance in the account, it can be replaced with an equivalent amount during the lazy person's listening session.

Users who have not previously used Penguin FM are currently unable to log in to their mobile app through QQ or WeChat.

Reason for the shutdown of Penguin FM: "Brother" stole the spotlight from "Brother"

8-year-old penguin FM is about to say goodbye to everyone.

But in fact, its outage has been expected for a long time - the annual qualification review of the official microblog expired, the latest update was more than a year ago, and the official official account has also been suspended for more than three years.

The latest Weibo account was also saying, 'We are out of service'. Adversity shows true love, and in the comments section of Penguin FM, you can also see the reluctance of a small number of fan users.

Sadly, the eight year old software's exit did not cause a significant splash on the internet. Media reviewsLike a big tree quietly falling into the forest

But this is alsoThis indirectly indicates the weakness and Buddhist style of Penguin FM on the long audio track.

In the "2023 China Online Audio Market Development Research Report" released by Sailixin, Penguin FM is listed as the second tier,The monthly living volume is only 1.96 million, while the first tier Himalayas reached 140 million.

But Penguin FM also had a glorious history.

In May 2015, Penguin FM was born. From the perspective of content classification, it is no different from other audio software such as Himalayas, Dragonfly FM, Litchi FM, etc. Since its inception, it has been competing with other software in the long audio arena.

At that time, Tencent occupied half of the online literary world, with numerous domestic large-scale IPs such as "Ghost Blowing Lantern", "Tomb Robbing Notes", and "Langya List" under its umbrella.

Copyright and high-quality authors are important resources for audio platforms.

That is to say, in terms of IP resources, Penguin FM has never been lacking.Not to mention in 2018, Penguin FM also collaborated with Shenzhen Broadcasting and Television, Xinhua News Agency, China Net, and others,During its peak period, it covered nearly 200 radio channels nationwide,The content resources are quite abundant. According to historical data,In the first half of 2019, the average monthly active users of Penguin FM reached 5.68 million.

And from the glorious period to the shutdown, all of this is related to another object mentioned in the shutdown announcement, "Lazy People Listening to Books".

After the outbreak of the epidemic, all offline entertainment was suspended, while the long audio track entered its peak period. Data shows that in 2020, the number of domestic podcast listeners reached 68.4 million, with a year-on-year increase of over 50% in the total number of programs. This also means that the players on the long audio track are fighting even more fiercely.

At that time, Himalayas had a market share of 67% in the long audio field, making them a well-deserved leader in the long audio track.

In order to compete in the market, Tencent invested hundreds of millions of resources in its long audio business and launched a "full-scale war" against the Himalayas.

In April 2021,Tencent Music spent 2.7 billion yuan to acquire Lazy Listening, attacking Himalaya with both products and using a large amount of funds to "dig corners" of Himalaya.

Unfortunately, this "big coin throwing" attack did not shake the Himalayas in the slightest, but rather caused Tencent to lose its own blood. In the second quarter of 2020, Tencent Music reportedThe marketing expenses reached 579 million yuan.

Although the first goal was not achievedLazy people listen to booksStill survivedOperate together with Penguin FM.In this case,Penguin FM lacks Tencent's care for "only children", and a large number of user traffic is being taken away by "younger brothers".

FMLazy people listen to booksThis also prompted Tencent to consider stopping one. According to the data,2022FM220Lazy people listen to books

In this way, the answer of Tencent Bao is self-evident.

Other audio companies are also walking on thin ice, and the "ear economy" is thriving

In fact, it's not just Penguin FM, but other players on the long audio track are not doing well either.

Let's talk about lychee FM first. On January 17, 2020, Litchi FM rang the bell on NASDAQ, offering a total of 4.1 million ADSs at a price of $11 per share, with an initial public offering of $45.1 million. After the first trading day, the stock price of lychee underwent a series of fluctuations, reaching a maximum of $15.25.

How spirited the lychees were at that time.

But then what? And then it disappeared

Although Litchi FM holds the title of "audio first stock" in China, American investors across the ocean do not seem to be superstitious about the title of "first stock".On the second day of listing, I encountered the embarrassment of breaking the stock market, and the final closing price was $10.94, failing to return to above the issuance price.

Afterwards, Litchi released a total of eight quarterly financial reports, and only achieved profits in the third and fourth quarters of 2020, with net profits of 600000 yuan and 5.4 million yuan, respectively. The other six quarters were in a loss state.After one year of listing, the market value has shrunk by 60%.

The situation in the Himalayas is even more bleak.

From 2019 to 2021, the annual losses of the Himalayas were 1.925 billion yuan, 2.882 billion yuan, and 5.106 billion yuan, respectively. After adjustment, the annual losses were 749 million yuan, 539 million yuan, and 759 million yuan, respectively,The cumulative net loss over three years has exceeded 2 billion yuan.

It was not until the fourth quarter of 2022 that the company achieved its first profit, but its net profit only reached tens of millions, which is not worth mentioning compared to the previous losses.

The listing of the Himalayas has been plagued by misfortune.All three IPOs were rejected. On the other hand, Keep, who was also unlucky for Sanchuang IPO, successfully landed on the Hong Kong stock market on July 12, 2023.

The situation of top companies is still the same, let alone other companies on the track.

In fact, the scale of the online audio market is not small. According to the 2023 China Network Audiovisual Development Research Report, as of the end of 2022, the internet audio market (including music)The user base is approximately 690 million,The penetration rate of the entire network is about 67.6%, and the daily usage per capita has reached 114 minutes.

To this day,The 'ear economy' still has great room for development.

The only difficulty is monetization.

Previously, the public prospectus of Himalaya showed that the average monthly active users across the entire Himalaya network in 2021 were 268 million. howeverThe number of paid members is only 14.4 million,The full platform payment rate is only 5.3%.

Users use long audio as a way to pass the time, and they generally do not have essential content to listen to. Why spend money listening to paid content when there is a large amount of non copyright free content to choose from? Some customers with knowledge needs may be willing to consume, but not the majority.The poor payment ability of long audio users is in stark contrast to music and long videos.

In summary, nowAlthough it has a large user base, it does not have the ability to make users pay.No wonder some people evaluate long audio tracks: half are flames, half are seawater.

Podcasts, once seen as the future of long audio, now face challenges of being 'acclimatized'

There is a section called "Podcasts" in the long audio track. This concept appeared in the British Guardian as early as 2004. The definition of podcast in domestic platforms is that all audio programs continuously updated by Content creation are podcasts.

In 2020, various long audio track companies began to focus on podcasts. Tencent has launched Kuwo ChangTing, NetEase Cloud has launched a specialized podcast app called "Little Universe", and Today's Headlines has launched Tomato ChangTing The term podcast is also increasingly appearing in the market.

The trend of long audio before this was also triggered by the popularity of "podcasts" during the epidemic. Therefore, some people see podcasts as a breakthrough point in opening up the dilemma of long audio, and even the future of long audio.

There is a clear reference to the notion that podcasts are the future of long audio: podcasts are in an exceptionally popular state abroad. There are data institutions available for statistics,Currently, the audience of podcasts in the United States is around 100 million, accounting for approximately one-third of the total population.Platforms including Spotify and Amazon may even push prices to tens of millions of dollars when bidding for top podcast programs.

However,Foreign podcasts have become popular abroad, but they are not well suited to the local conditions at home.at presentLazy people listen to books

From this, it can be seen that relying on podcasts to save long audio is just an extravagant hope.

The main reason why podcasts did not fulfill the important task of "saving long audio" in China is due to insufficient time.

You should know that the United States formed a podcast system before entering the era of the Internet. They are accustomed to listening to "podcasts" while driving to work, and this period of driving to work has a significantly longer history than in our country.

So it will be an extremely long and difficult process for podcasts to fully penetrate the domestic market. If you want podcasts to become the savior of China's long audio industry, then you have to wait for them to complete this process.

But in the long audio industry, it's obvious that we can't wait anymore.


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