Hupu product analysis report!

On June 6, 2019, Hupu Sports Community received a cash investment of 1.26 billion yuan from ByteDance. After the transaction was completed, ByteDance owned 30% of Hupu's shares. Currently, Hupu's various sections are developing rapidly, covering various sports categories, and adding offline events, such as the popular "King of the Road" event, co-organizing e-commerce and game operations. Various big names have settled in the platform, and it has become one of the largest sports portals in China.

From the early days of the industry to the present, what kind of operating mode has enabled Hupu to stand out and rise strongly among many competitors? What is the current development status and future direction of the Internet sports industry?

This article will analyze the perspective of Hupu App to give you an in-depth understanding of the operating logic of this company and the Internet sports industry.

This article will analyze from the following aspects:

• Industry Analysis
• Competitive product analysis
• Industry Chain Analysis
• Core business analysis
• Product Iteration Analysis
• Product structure analysis
• Operational Analysis
• Summarize

1. Industry Analysis

The Internet sports industry refers to the industry that deeply integrates the innovative achievements of the Internet into the development of the sports industry based on the new forms and new business models of the rapidly developing Internet. Different from the traditional sports industry, it no longer relies solely on the promotion of physical stores to develop the industry. By leveraging the rapid transmission of information on the Internet, it promotes disruptive innovation and changes in the industrial chain, market ecology, and business model of the traditional sports industry, transforms the evolution model and business model of the sports industry, enhances the innovation, productivity, and core competitiveness of the sports industry, and forms a broader new form of sports industry development with Internet+ as the infrastructure and implementation tools.

Compared with other Internet industries, Internet sports has only accelerated its pace of development in recent years, especially after 2014, when the sports industry experienced a "boom".

Why did the once dormant sports industry experience explosive growth after 2014?

Below we use the PEST analysis model to explore the reasons behind this.

1.1 Politics

In 2014, the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Sports Industry and Promoting Sports Consumption". Various provinces and cities have issued sports industry development plans. The country has clearly pointed out that it is necessary to achieve a major breakthrough on the basis of the total output value of the sports industry of 1.1 trillion in 2013, and plans to create a 5 trillion sports market by 2025.

On October 2, 2014, the State Council issued Document No. 46 to encourage the development of the sports industry. There are dozens of related policies, and there are countless more specific local policies and documents.

On May 5, 2016, the "13th Five-Year Plan for Sports Development" was officially released, proposing that the total scale of the national sports industry will exceed 3 trillion by 2020.

At the beginning of 2019, the General Administration of Sport of China and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Action Plan to Further Promote Sports Consumption (2019-2020)". The core of the entire action plan is to promote the continuous improvement of sports consumption and expand its scale, and further play the role of the sports industry in expanding domestic demand, promoting economic structure transformation and upgrading, promoting employment and cultivating new momentum for economic development. This will meet the people's growing needs for a better life and promote the construction of a strong sports and healthy China.

The plan proposes that by 2020, the total scale of national sports consumption will reach 1.5 trillion yuan, the proportion of per capita sports consumption expenditure in total consumption expenditure will increase significantly, and the sports consumption structure will be more reasonable.

1.2 Economy

In 2013, the output value of China's sports industry reached 1.1 trillion yuan, with an added value of 357.5 billion yuan, a compound annual growth rate of 17.2% compared with 2010. The added value of the sports industry accounted for 0.63% of the GDP that year. It is still relatively low compared with the 3% GDP share of the United States during the same period, but it has a strong upward momentum.

In 2015, China's per capita GDP was 50,000 yuan, far higher than the economic level of the United States during the "boom" period of the sports industry. The added value of the sports industry accounts for 0.8% of GDP, which is still low but has increased significantly. It is highly likely that the goal of 1%+ will be achieved in 2020 ahead of schedule in 2017.

The added value of China's sports industry output has increased year by year, reaching 781.1 billion yuan in 2017, with a rapid growth momentum.

With the improvement of people's living standards and the increasingly urgent pursuit of health and leisure and entertainment, people are no longer focused on material life. After busy work, people begin to consider their physical health, making people willing to spend more money on the sports industry.

1.3 Society and Culture

From a social perspective, with the continuous improvement of people's living standards, sports and fitness have changed their previous user structure, which was mostly young men. The demand for physical exercise among people of all ages has undergone tremendous changes compared to the past, and more and more female users and elderly people have joined in fitness activities.

The improvement of education level and the diversification of social industries have led to more and more people engaging in the sports industry. At the same time, the change in people's attitude towards the sports industry is the best propellant for the development of the sports industry. Everything is centered on users, and only with continuous user support can further development be possible.

The rapid economic development has changed people's lifestyles. People have shifted from pursuing a quantity-based lifestyle to a quality-based lifestyle, and from a subsistence-based society to a moderately prosperous society. The understanding of the concept of health has developed to a higher level, and people have gradually become accustomed to the consumption mode of spending money to buy health.

1.4 Technology

With the introduction of Internet + Sports, the sluggish traditional sports industry has made new breakthroughs.

The popularity of smartphones and the development of the Internet have made people accustomed to searching for local life services with their mobile phones. Consumers can share their experiences with each other online, making the scene more standardized and transparent, and forming healthy competition among industries. The Internet has made it easy to watch sports events. You only need to use a mobile phone app to watch live events in real time, and you can also have instant discussions with many netizens. It is more convenient and interesting than traditional sports.

With the popularization of 5G and artificial intelligence technology in the future, the Internet will better connect users and sports products. The emergence of various new technologies will enable sports viewing to evolve from the initial text live broadcast to ultra-high-definition live broadcast. In the future, it may develop into immersive viewing, giving people a feeling of being at the event site.

All of the above factors have together driven the popularity of the Internet sports market in recent years.

In 2015, the total value of my country's sports industry reached 1.7 trillion yuan, with an added value of 549.49 billion yuan. According to data from iResearch Consulting, the total value target for 2025 is 5 trillion yuan, and the added value is expected to be 2 trillion yuan. As shown below:

According to the forecast data of the General Administration of Sports, the scale of the national sports industry in 2019 was 2.66 trillion yuan, an increase of 36.72% compared with 2018. According to the forecast data, although the growth rate of scale has declined in recent years, it still maintains a relatively high growth rate. It is expected to reach saturation point in about 10 years and reach an industry scale of 3.6 trillion yuan by 2022.

2. Competitive product analysis

In the past few years of rapid development of Internet sports, everyone wants to seize the opportunity to get a piece of the pie. Standing at the forefront of this era, there are old-established companies and many emerging unicorn companies, including Tencent Sports, LeTV Sports, Sina Sports, Suning Sports, etc.

Relying on large enterprises, it was able to seize the opportunity at the beginning of the transformation of traditional sports to Internet+ and occupied a large market share. There are also some companies that have been strong in recent years, such as Hupu, Dongqiudi, Migu Video, Zhiboba, etc. The following mainly analyzes Hupu, Tencent Sports, and Dongqiudi.

2.1 Hupu

• In January 2004, CEO Dr. Cheng Hang founded the hoopCHINA basketball forum, the predecessor of Hupu, in Chicago. Hoop means basketball or basket in Chinese, which means Hupu started out with basketball as its main focus. It is a typical vertical community focused on basketball events.
• In September 2007, the company was established and started operations. In November, football, F1, tennis and C2C channels were created, and diversified sports development began.
• In May 2012, Hupu Sports Android and iPhone mobile clients were officially launched, entering the mobile Internet field. In October of the same year, it sponsored the WCBA League and became a professional league partner, providing official website services for it.
• In 2016, Hupu submitted a prospectus and attempted an IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange;
• In January 2018, Hupu received RMB 618 million in Series E financing, led by CICC.
• In 2019, Hupu once again attempted an IPO. On April 23, the website of the Shanghai Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission disclosed that Hupu (Shanghai) Culture Communication Co., Ltd. had applied to enter the listing guidance period. In June, ByteDance acquired a 30% stake in Hupu for RMB 1.26 billion, becoming the largest shareholder of Hupu.

Hupu has been cooperating with major leagues, signing many stars, and operating and hosting All-Star events.

In terms of business segments, since 2014, Hupu has begun to develop a shopping segment, founded the shopping guide website "Shihuo", and entered the e-commerce industry. By 2017, the transaction volume reached 2 billion, accounting for a large proportion of Hupu's commercialization segment.

In addition to NBA events, Hupu officials also used their own resources to start hosting free events. The King of the Road event hosted in 2016 reached its peak in 2019. It was extremely popular and once became the most popular basketball event in the country.

Of course, there will be some storms on the road ahead. The Morey incident in October 2019 dealt a heavy blow to the Hupu community, which mainly focuses on NBA events. NBA broadcasts were affected. National sovereignty must not be violated. Although we are fans, we are Chinese first. Hupu began to shift its focus more to domestic events, and also began to work closely with film and television, and e-sports. As a warm community, Hupu has accumulated a large number of loyal users, and its future development is sure to be bright.

2.2 Tencent Sports

Tencent Sports APP is a mobile APP designed by Tencent that focuses on sports videos. It is dedicated to providing sports users with the latest live broadcasts and information on events. It covers a wide range of sports events, including basketball, football, golf, tennis, etc. It controls the core resources of the sports industry and has established strategic partnerships with many sports organizations.

The development process is as follows:

Phase 1 (2003-2007): In 2003, Tencent Sports was officially launched; until 2007, Tencent Sports’ business was relatively simple, focusing on sports reporting.

The second stage (2008-2013): Tencent Sports began to shift its focus from broadcasting to live broadcasting. As the events were relatively single and the number of events per month was very limited, it was necessary to focus on important events and seek breakthroughs in major events.

The important events are as follows:

• In 2008, Tencent Sports used its online platform to lead all netizens to participate in the Olympics, and Tencent Sports became the first online home.
• In 2010, Tencent Sports created an innovative live broadcast reporting model, which greatly improved the World Cup viewing experience;
• In 2013, the platform took an absolute leading position and became the only Internet service partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee.

Phase 3 (2014-2015):

• Based on the existing resources, Tencent began to develop event IP, mainly NBA events;
• In 2015, Tencent seized the opportunity, deeply penetrated the country's strong IP, and obtained the exclusive online broadcasting rights of the NBA for 5 seasons.

The fourth stage (2016-present):

Tencent Sports has begun to expand its business, not only launching an impact on top events such as FIBA, Premier League, and NHL, but also taking into account e-sports events;

In 2016, it won the online copyrights of top events including NBA, FIBA, Premier League, League of Legends, etc.

Tencent Sports has mastered the core resources of the sports industry, owns the core copyrights of NBA, Premier League, NHL and other core events, and has established strategic partnerships with many sports organizations. Over the past 16 years, relying on its advantages of high-quality content, new experience, and diversified communication, it has covered the most comprehensive live and on-demand sports event resources. It also has an exclusive community for sports fans, closely connecting users and events, and is the most professional sports platform in China.

2.3 Football King

Compared with Hupu, Dongqiudi has too many similarities. Hupu initially focused on NBA events, while Dongqiudi started with football and focuses on football information and UGC content, aiming to build the most professional football vertical community.

In 2013, Chen Cong founded Dongqiudi and officially released its first APP in December.

In February 2014, Dongqiudi APP received millions of angel investment from Xiangfeng Changqingshu, which provided financial support for its subsequent development. In May of the same year, Dongqiudi APP once again received US$4 million in Series A funding from Sequoia, officially starting its financing journey. With the launch of the World Cup, Dongqiudi specially created a World Cup circle to provide users with a great platform for World Cup exchanges.

In September 2015, it once again received US$10 million in Series B funding from Dynamic Capital. By the end of the year, it had risen to fourth place in the sports app rankings.

In December 2016, Dongqiudi received nearly 400 million yuan in Series C financing led by Suning.

Up to now, the total download volume of Dongqiudi APP has reached 124 million times, and the number of monthly active users is also in the tens of millions, making it the largest football vertical new media community in China.

3. Industry chain analysis

Under the Internet + sports model, the sports market industry chain runs through sports resource production, sports industry operation, sports industry communication, sports industry derivative industries and loyal sports users. The platform needs to connect with various sports events and activities, and provide high-quality sports event content to sports enthusiasts, so as to attract users.

The production of sports resources includes a steady stream of events. The platform needs to do a good job of operations to ensure the implementation of various activities, and also do a good job of disseminating event information. In addition, in the face of competition from peers, it is necessary to give users a sense of freshness in order to retain them.

As the company grows and develops, various sports derivative industries can also provide new sections for the platform. On the user side, fans hope to interact with everyone, see the latest sports information, etc.

The main participants of Hupu are: event IP, platform, and users.

Next, let’s explore how Hupu APP meets the needs of all parties and grows stronger.

3.1 Event IP

The most important thing of a sports platform is definitely sports resources. Without competitive event resources, the platform will lose the ability to continue operating.

The event IP includes various competitive sports. With the development of the times, in addition to traditional competitions, e-sports events have also been added.

For event organizers, they have the following requirements:

• On the premise of providing high-quality events, spread the events and let more audiences watch the games;
• Professional live or broadcast team for events;
• An influential cooperation platform with a large number of users' support.

3.2 Users

In the early days, a large number of Hupu App users came from sports enthusiasts accumulated on PC forums. Later, with the operation and platform advantages, a large number of new users were introduced. With the expansion of the sections, the user span became wider and wider, including sports enthusiasts, sports equipment fans, e-sports enthusiasts, film and television enthusiasts, etc.

User geographical distribution (image from Baidu Index):

Hupu users are mainly concentrated in developed coastal provinces such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong, with the widest distribution in East China. The income level of this group of people is higher than that of the mainland, their lifestyle focuses more on spiritual life, and they often pay more attention to sports development.

User attributes (the following two pictures are from Baidu Index):

It can be seen that about 80% of Hupu's user base are young users under the age of 29, and the gender distribution is even more extreme, with males accounting for 91.42%, making it a typical gathering place for straight men.

The single age group and gender ratio of users make user needs more obvious:

• Sports enthusiasts hope to see the latest event information, live broadcasts, and understand event data on the platform;
• I hope to have a group of like-minded people to discuss some interesting scenes I saw during the live broadcast or my own views on the game;
• Want to buy some genuine sports equipment through the platform;
• When there are no sports events, watch other news and interesting things.

3.3 Platform

How does Hupu platform handle event IP and user needs to ensure the healthy operation of the platform?

3.3.1 Competition IP:

Currently, Hupu has multiple event sections. Although it does not have the copyright for live video broadcasts of events, its text and picture broadcasts still have a large number of users under the operation of a professional team. While Hupu is developing the IP market for top events such as Barcelona and Real Madrid, it is also building its own offline basketball event IP "King of the Street". In just one year, the event has covered more than 30 cities across the country, and the number of video views has exceeded 110 million.

3.3.2 User side:

In order to meet users' needs for watching games, Hupu has set up a text live broadcast room for the events and has a professional team that can provide users with the latest information as soon as possible. Regarding users' needs for event data, Hupu tries its best to meet their ideas. Among them, NBA and CBA have the largest user base. The product iterations in recent years have been centered around the NBA and CBA sections, with team rankings, player rankings, rookie rankings, honors lists, etc. The data classification is detailed and complete. Basically, you can find all the player and team data you want to know.

In terms of event discussions, Hupu has been deeply involved in the community, where users can browse posts, post comments and reply to comments. The community's target users are very clear. It mainly provides an interactive platform for people who love sports and like to communicate. With the development of the company and the diversification of users, there are now more and more sections, including NBA, CBA, humor, film and television entertainment, games, equipment, Chinese football, digital and so on.

Hupu owns two sports e-commerce platforms, Youdu and Shihuo, where users can buy many of their favorite equipment.

Hupu has done a good job in user retention. When facing some major events, Hupu will not blindly follow the trend to release information, but will present it in a unique way after determining the truth of the matter. The updates of many modules can touch people's hearts, for example:

During the epidemic, all the lighted buttons became "Come on China". On the evening of February 24, a live broadcast room was set up to commemorate Kobe and pay tribute to his life. Everyone stayed up late together to remember Kobe. Mamba is out, but the legend lives on. Perhaps this is what makes Hupu different.

4. Core business analysis

The core businesses of Hupu App at present mainly include live event broadcasting, user community and video sharing.

(1) Live broadcast of events

In the era of Internet informatization, real-time and authenticity are important. In the sports industry, video resources have an unshakable advantage over text information. However, due to its relatively late development, Hupu cannot compete with the old sports portals in terms of event broadcasting resources.

So far, except for some domestic events that Hupu App provides live video broadcasts, NBA events, Premier League, Champions League and other professional leagues can only be watched through text and picture broadcasts. Live video can only be viewed through Tencent Sports, Migu Video, Suning Sports, etc. Especially in the NBA section, Tencent Sports has the online broadcasting rights for up to 5 years, which is indeed the biggest disadvantage for Hupu, which started out in the NBA.

When video live streaming doesn't work, all Hupu can do is work hard to operate picture and text live streaming. Compared with live video, live text and picture broadcast cannot capture the exciting shots of the event in real time, but it also has its unique advantages. Live text and picture broadcasting requires a low internet speed and is more friendly to students. They no longer have to worry about high data traffic fees, nor do they have to worry about missing out on wonderful goals due to sudden lags (however, with the development of the Internet, this advantage seems to have disappeared).

With a large number of users, Hupu no longer has to worry about the number of viewers, so it focuses on event information and the professionalism of its broadcasts. We have a professional event handling team to ensure the professionalism of the live text broadcast of the event, improve the team and player information as much as possible, focus on the schedule and real-time event news, and stimulate user interaction through event highlights and event topics, so as to retain and develop users.

Hupu also strives to obtain video resources through other channels and cooperates with some domestic media that have the rights to broadcast live events. For example, it cooperated with PPTV in the commentary of the CBA League. In 2016, Hupu developed the offline event IP "King of Passersby", which also made up for the problem of its own restricted video live broadcast copyright.

The current event channels are no longer limited to NBA and CBA, but also include King of Passes, Chinese Football, International Football, League of Legends, Honor of Kings, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, etc. More and more sections are being added, and more users are being introduced.

(2) User Community

Hupu adopts a completely open community model. Users can browse posts, post comments, reply to comments, reward, click on, report posts, etc. After passing the unique Hupu exam, they can post, so that there is always a steady stream of content injected, and the speed of information dissemination is extremely fast, which is of great help to the immediacy of information and can stimulate user experience.

The community's target users are very clear. It mainly provides an interactive platform for people who love sports and like to communicate. With the development of the company and the diversification of users, there are now more and more sections, including NBA, CBA, humor, film and television entertainment, games, equipment, Chinese football, digital and so on.

In order to allow users to see as much content as possible, before entering the Hupu App, users can choose the section they are interested in. The homepage recommendations and community display content will give priority to the modules that users like. Doing so can make the content more representative and meet user needs.

Hupu has been deeply cultivating the community and has been very thoughtful in terms of user experience. For example, under the NBA section, a separate topic area is set up for each team, so that a group of fans with the same interests can interact and discuss together. The discussion content is also more professional, and it also avoids endless wars of words between different fans.

In order to better manage the community and prevent it from being filled with vulgarity, boredom and bad taste, Hupu has set up a reputation system to classify users and ensure the high quality of community content. Each section also has corresponding moderators to assist in management.

(3) Video sharing

Hupu App places the video at the bottom and sets up an independent entrance to cater to the currently popular short video function. It hopes to attract more users through the video mode, while also inspiring user creation and injecting content into the platform.

The video sharing section includes several major parts, including comprehensive, League of Legends, Honor of Kings, Beauty, Practical Basketball, Film and Television Entertainment, and Comedy. It is basically entertainment-oriented. There is only one practical basketball in the sports category. The video mode is similar to Tik Tok, basically consisting of some short videos, which can be refreshed and watched in real time. Users can share, reply, and like.

As a sports app, it has a huge user base, so it stands to reason that the actual basketball in the video module should have a high level of participation. But this is not the case. User engagement with short videos is not high, with few people commenting or liking them. Many short videos are moved from other software. Perhaps due to insufficient incentives for creation or other reasons, the video module does not seem to meet expectations.

5. Product Iteration Analysis

The core iterations of Hupu App from V1.0.1 to V7.3.35 are summarized as follows (since data before version 6.4 cannot be found, the analysis starts from the 2015 iteration):

According to the above figure, we can divide Hupu's recent iteration into three stages for analysis:

Phase 1:

From the time the mobile version was launched until June 2015, the Hupu mobile version was called “Hupu Watch Football”. In the initial stage, Hupu Sports mainly displays the existing basic functions of the PC through the mobile terminal, designs a UGC community platform, and the core functional modules are community and events, providing fans with a platform for watching and communicating with each other.

Phase 2:

From June 2015 to August 2017, the good operation in the previous stage made Hupu become one of the sports platforms with the largest number of active users in the country. As of December 31, 2015, the number of monthly active users on all Hupu platforms was approximately 45 million. The Hupu mobile app was renamed "Hupu Sports". During this period, the App focused on football and basketball, and a live broadcast room was specially set up in combination with the currently popular live broadcast mode.

In terms of basketball: focus on the construction and optimization of NBA and CBA functional modules, add player information, statistics, shooting heat maps and team-related data viewing functions, so that users can better understand the stars and related event information.

In terms of football: based on the Chinese Super League, we develop national event IPs, add international football channels and live broadcasts of the America's Cup, optimize the viewing section information, add standings, scorers' lists, assists lists, etc. At the same time, in order to provide a better viewing experience, we have also added a GIF animation function to easily record every wonderful shot.

Phase 3:

From August 2017 to date, "Hupu Sports" has been officially renamed "Hupu" and a new logo has been launched. The logo contains "jr", a unique Hupu proprietary logo, which also means that Hupu puts its users in its heart, giving Hupu straight men a unique sense of intimacy, and everyone calls themselves "family."

Since there is a great overlap between sports users and users in other fields, at this stage, Hupu App began to connect with e-commerce, e-sports events, sports lottery, film and television industries, etc. without lowering the status of basketball and football; the e-commerce module added the [Know the Goods] equipment identification function, and established a special Hupu trading area for fans to purchase authentic equipment; in terms of e-sports games, new sections such as League of Legends, Honor of Kings, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds were added, providing event information and player-related data, etc., and also adding various mini-game functions.

summary:

On the premise of gaining a large number of users, Hupu has not forgotten to operate the community. It has been exploring user pain points and solving community user needs. The community is highly open, and the core is still on basketball and football.

Based on such healthy development, Hupu began to enter the e-sports, film and television, lottery, automobile and other industries. Due to the overlapping of user fields, the stickiness of existing loyal users will not decrease, and a large number of new users will be introduced, such as movie stars, competitive players, etc., and it is slowly developing from a sports community to a comprehensive life community.

6. Product structure analysis

6.1 Functional structure diagram

The following figure is the product structure diagram of Hupu App V7.3.34:

By sorting out the product structure of Hupu App according to users, scenarios, needs and functions, we can get the following table:

The following is an analysis of several major user paths:

6.1 View event information

Most people download the Hupu App to learn about sports news and watch sports events. The first step is to get the latest event information. Hupu's homepage - the event page, is dedicated to providing users with event information, including NBA, CBA, King of the Road and other different modules. Users can enter the corresponding function page to watch information according to their preferences. Real-time information includes news and schedule functions, so that users will not miss every exciting game.

Some users only want to see information about their favorite teams. Hupu provides a follow function. When you enter the follow page, all content information is about your favorite team. Isn’t it nice?

6.2 Watch Live Broadcast

After learning about the event information, friends must have already prepared their stools and melon seeds, ready to watch a match between James and Durant, or a competition between Messi and Ronaldo. Hupu provides users with exciting live broadcasts of pictures and texts on the homepage - event page, and some copyrighted events can be watched live. After entering the event page, users can select the event module they want to watch, and then there are two ways to watch the game:

1. Enter the news page, the top of the page will show the current live broadcast of the event, click on the live broadcast of the event to enter the live broadcast room;
2. Go to the schedule page and click Today-Ongoing Events to enter the live broadcast room.

Enter the live broadcast room page to watch professional live text and video broadcasts in real time and interact with everyone. In the case where there is no live video broadcast, an external live video broadcast link will be provided at the top of the score in the live broadcast room. You can click it to watch. In order to enhance interactivity, Hupu also provides a guessing game, and fans can participate in the guessing game using Hupu gold beans.

   For those who missed the exciting games, Hupu has set up a highlights function. You can click "Highlights" on the live match competition chart in the live broadcast room to watch directly.

6.3 Browse posts and post posts

After watching the exciting game, the audience must have endless things to say, such as who played poorly, who performed beyond their contract, who was the best player of the day, etc. At this time, friends can post pictures, texts and videos through the release page entrance in the upper right corner and discuss with others. If you want to see posts posted by others, Hupu has two sections: Home-Recommendations and Home-Community, which provide the function of browsing posts. You can choose your favorite topics and speak freely with everyone, reply and interact.

7. Operational Analysis

The main operational activities of Hupu since its establishment are summarized as follows:

In September 2007, Hupu officially started operations and received round A funding from Morningside Technology.

In November 2007, Hupu created football, F1 tennis and C2C channels;

In April 2012, Hupu released its new domain name HUPU and new slogan "Your Sports World";

In May 2012, Hupu sponsored the NBL League, became a professional league partner, and provided official website services;

In September 2012, Hupu World was put into operation, creating a gaming platform for the joint operation of multiple popular online games, and received a RMB 40 million B round of financing led by Haitong Capital;

In October 2012, Hupu sponsored the WCBA League and provided official website services for it;

2012.11, Hupu International Sports Marketing Summit was held in Shanghai;

2014.02.27, Hupu launched the shopping guide module “Know the Goods”;

In July 2014, Hupu received a total of RMB 100 million in Series C funding led by Jinglin Capital;

In January 2015, Hupu received a total of RMB 240 million in Series D funding led by Guirenniao;

In the summer of 2016, Hupu launched the grassroots basketball tournament “King of Passersby” to create its own tournament IP;

2016.04, Hupu issued its initial public offering prospectus and planned to be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange;

On October 2, 2017, Hupu Esports officially launched the League of Legends section, and the APP introduction was changed to "Basketball X Football X Esports";

In January 2018, Hupu received a round E financing led by CICC, totaling 618 million yuan;

On May 23, 2019, Hupu added the "Automobile" section to its classified sections;

On June 6, 2019, Hupu received an investment of RMB 1.26 billion from ByteDance, the parent company of Toutiao, with a shareholding ratio of 30%, becoming the largest shareholder.

8. Conclusion

Through the overall analysis of the Internet sports market and Hupu App, we can draw the following conclusions:

1. Driven by policy, economic, social, cultural, and technological factors, Internet sports has developed rapidly and will continue to grow in the next few years.
2. In this industry, Hupu is catching up with old-line sports companies such as Tencent Sports and has a large market share. Although its revenue is still far behind, its user scale has already reached the first tier. It recently received investment from ByteDance and is full of momentum.
3. While connecting with other event IPs, the platform continues to develop its own event IPs, while also entering into sports-derivative industries such as e-commerce, e-sports, film and television, and more. On the premise of gaining a large number of users, Hupu has not forgotten to operate the community. It has been exploring user pain points and solving community user needs. The community is highly open, and the core is still on basketball and football. On the basis of such healthy development, Hupu has begun to enter the e-sports, film and television, lottery, automobile and other industries. Due to the overlap of user fields, the stickiness of existing loyal users will not decrease, and a large number of new users will be introduced.
4. At present, it seems that Hupu's mobile terminal is moving at a good pace and has broken through the bottleneck of vertical communities. After receiving multiple rounds of financing, it has begun to accelerate its operation pace, enter multiple fields, give full play to its own advantages and characteristics, and develop into a comprehensive sports community centered on events and communities.

at last:

As one of many JRs, I first came into contact with Hupu when I was a freshman in college. My family was strict in high school and I didn’t have a mobile phone to use. During the 2013 NBA Finals, a classmate in my class had a Nokia phone with buttons, so we all gathered together to watch the text live broadcast and cheered for Ray Allen's three-pointer in the last few seconds. After I came into contact with Hupu, I fell deeply in love with this app. I have been using it to watch NBA games and share every detail of watching the games with many fan friends.

There are many people here who understand football, and most of the topics discussed can resonate with you, giving people a sense of home. Of course, in addition to basketball, you can also find many other topics that interest you, such as football, badminton, table tennis and other sports, as well as e-sports events, League of Legends, Honor of Kings, Chicken Dinner, etc.

I hope Hupu can continue to operate well, stay true to its original aspiration, focus on sports competition, and make this JRs home warmer and warmer.

Author: cp watermelon peel

Source: cp watermelon rind