Himalaya FM product analysis!

Pan-entertainment has always been in the limelight, and audio content based on a huge user base is a guarantee of traffic and monetization. In the past few years, China's mobile audio market has experienced rapid development and has become mature, and new tracks are being expanded at an accelerated pace.

1. A very simple analysis of the domestic mobile audio market

During the period 2016-2019, the scale of my country's Internet audio market generally showed an annual growth trend. The growth rate has slowed down in the past two years but is still in rapid growth.

From 2018 to 2019, the number of active mobile audio users in my country has generally increased year by year, and the market has entered a mature application stage.

1. Mobile Audio

Mobile audio refers to the use of mobile terminals such as smartphones, tablets, car audio, wearable devices, etc. as carriers to provide voice listening and other services. The content includes traditional radio stations, music radio stations, crosstalk and storytelling, variety entertainment, encyclopedia knowledge, novels, film and television original sounds, radio dramas, education and training, news information and other audio content. With the mobile Internet, richer and more powerful audio media has been born.

2. Development scale: rapid growth and mature market

During the period 2016-2019, the scale of my country's Internet audio market generally showed an annual growth trend. The growth rate has slowed down in the past two years but is still in rapid growth.

In 2019, the scale of my country's Internet audio market was 8.772 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.50%. The main sources of market revenue were audio entertainment, content payment and advertising marketing, accounting for 95% of the total market size. The number of active mobile audio users in China has generally shown an increasing trend year by year. As of March 2020, the number of active mobile audio users in China was 13,000. The top mobile audio users in China are Himalaya ,蜻蜓FM, and荔枝. Among them, Himalaya has 86.61 million active users, far higher than others. In 2019, my country's mobile audio book users were mainly male, aged between 30 and 40.

From 2018 to 2019, the number of active mobile audio users in China has generally increased year by year , and the market has entered a mature application stage.

The number of active users has continued to grow, from 7,600 active users in January 2018 to 11,100 active users in December 2018 to 11,800 active users in December 2019. As of March 2020, the number of active mobile audio users in my country was 13,000. As of June 2020, there were 275 million online audio users in China, accounting for 29.3% of Internet users. The audio market is already in the mature application stage, the business model is becoming more mature, and revenue methods are becoming more diversified.

3. Market echelon: Ximalaya FM firmly sits on the altar

The first tier - Himalaya FM, is far ahead and firmly sits on the altar;

The second tier: Qingting FM and Lizhi;

The third echelon - Maoer FM, Penguin FM, Kuaiyin, etc.

As of March 2020, the top mobile audio platforms in my country in terms of active user numbers are Himalaya,蜻蜓FM, and荔枝. Among them, Himalaya has 86.61 million active users, accounting for 65% of the active users in the domestic mobile audio market; the active users of蜻蜓FM and荔枝 account for 5.7%; the user scale of猫耳FM,彭顾FM,快音 and others are all less than 5 million, accounting for a total of 25.1%; Himalaya FM is far ahead and firmly sits on the altar.

4. Industry characteristics: fragment killer, time-sucking weapon

5. Development trend——With buff, emptying your wallet is no longer a dream

Policy level✔

The Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China clearly stipulates the copyright protection of audio products. In addition, relevant departments have severely cracked down on online infringement and piracy, industry norms have been gradually implemented, and the industry's copyright environment has improved. In addition, the country has vigorously promoted the integrated development of cultural and creative service industries such as audio, online literature, and publishing.

Economic level✔

Affected by the epidemic, China's overall consumption level began to decline in the first quarter of this year. As of August this year, China's total retail sales of consumer goods have returned to the same level as last year, and is expected to return to the normal growth range in the later period. The recovery of China's overall consumption willingness and consumption capacity has provided basic conditions for the development of the online audio industry.

Knowledge payment concept✔

With the increase in the national consumption index, monetization models such as content payment and live broadcast rewards have emerged and been widely accepted, and more online audio users are willing to pay for high-quality content; the emergence of various trendy cultures such as crosstalk, two-dimensional, radio dramas, etc., while enriching the audio content, also gathers online communities based on the same interests and hobbies. Among them, Maoer FM, an APP targeting "original danmei culture", directly pioneered the commercial dubbing of pure love radio dramas, and met the expectations of a large number of paying viewers with its high-quality creative content.

Technical aspects✔

The popularization of 4G technology has made the spread of online audio faster and more convenient. The application of 5G technology in the future will provide more room for innovation in the application of online audio. The development of artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technologies has created a good foundation for content production on online audio platforms, and the continuous application of big data technology has realized personalized intelligent recommendations for users.

2. Comparison and analysis of mobile audio products based on Maoer FM and Himalaya FM

1. Comparison of development history

Maoer FM was founded in 2014. In the early days, it relied on a group of CVs who did it for love and a post-production staff team to produce free radio dramas.

In 2018, it was acquired by bilibili for 1 billion yuan and launched the large-scale costume radio drama "SPL" produced by the well-known domestic studio 729 Sound Factory, officially opening the precedent for commercial dubbing of radio dramas.

As of the beginning of 2021, the third season of "The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation", a fantasy costume radio drama produced by Beidou Penguin Studio, has reached hundreds of millions of views on M Station, ranking top 1 among M Station's radio dramas. M Station has launched a commercial radio drama model that combines top IPs with well-known dubbing studios.

Himalaya FM was founded in August 2012, its website was launched in November of the same year, and its client was launched the following year.

In 2016, with the help of the popularity of knowledge payment, Himalaya launched the country’s first content consumption festival, the “123 Knowledge Carnival”.

In the fourth quarter of 2017, the number of active users of Himalaya APP reached nearly 60 million, accounting for more than half of the market share, leading the mobile audio market.

2. Ecological environment comparison

Maoer FM has been deeply involved in the fields of the second dimension and radio dramas.

Himalaya FM's leadership lies in its continuous deepening of content resources, while expanding more consumption scenarios and strengthening its brand value by establishing a full audio ecosystem.

Content deepening and expansion: Himalaya's content focuses on three aspects: anchors, IP resources and basic content. Anchor: Encourage user creation, mature anchor growth system, systematic recording guidance and operation promotion. IP resources: Leveraging IP resources has laid a solid foundation in the field of high-quality paid content. The integration of entertainment and knowledge can meet the diverse needs of users at all levels. Basic content: As a comprehensive audio sharing platform, Himalaya’s basic content categories are complete and diverse in form. Multi-channel layout: Build a complete audio ecosystem through multiple channels. Launched the "Himalaya Inside" open platform, cooperated with downstream hardware manufacturers to provide audio content solutions for smart hardware products; launched smart speakers; teamed up with 60 vehicle manufacturers including BMW, Audi, Ford, and Volkswagen; and cooperated in the development of in-vehicle intelligent voice assistants.

Product comparison - based on the five elements of user experience: strategy, scope, structure, framework, performance

3. Strategic comparison (product positioning)

Maoer FM is generally a vertical community that caters to voice control, ACG enthusiasts, Japanese enthusiasts, original danmei enthusiasts and other ACG users, and focuses on providing ACG related content. It mainly targets fans of original gay videos, referred to as "腐女", as well as a large number of voice control fans, most of whom are female users aged 20-30. It has successively launched sections such as two-dimensional audio, audio comics, radio dramas and live broadcasts. Its main business line is to combine popular IPs in the domestic market with voice actors to create audio comics and radio dramas, which are then broadcast on the platform. In 2018, Maoer FM was acquired by Bilibili for 1 billion.

Himalaya FM is a multi-dimensional radio station that provides content production channels for audio producers and integrates "PGC+UGC+social" through various display forms of the platform. It is currently the fastest growing and largest online mobile audio sharing platform in China. Himalaya FM adopts the PGC+UGC content production strategy, playing the role of an audio ecosystem builder, so that the content on the platform can cover a wider user group and meet the needs of different users. It uses PGC and introduced and supported high-quality UGC anchors to meet mainstream needs, and the remaining scattered UGC meets long-tail needs. In this way, Himalaya FM has become the most concentrated and active platform for audio creators. With its massive audio content, it has accumulated a large number of users, and the number of active users is also leading the industry.

4. Functional scope comparison

5. Product structure comparison

M Station uses PGC to meet mainstream needs, while greatly weakening UGC. In the early days of M Station, its products were taken off the shelves due to over-open UGC. In addition, due to certain characteristics of users with two-dimensional attributes, M Station was particularly cautious about UGC. The weakening of UGC also directly led to the product's activity level not being able to reach an ideal state.

Platform roles: creator (weakened), content distribution platform, consumer.

Role interaction: Creators produce content and provide it to the platform. The platform distributes content to consumers. Consumers generate traffic and consumption. The platform rewards high-quality creative content with traffic based on consumer data. Creators gain more traffic through high-quality creations and thus create higher-quality content.

Himalaya FM adopts the "PGC+UGC" content production strategy, playing the role of an audio ecosystem builder, so that the content on the platform can cover a wider range of users and meet the needs of different users. Use PGC and the introduction and support of high-quality UGC anchors to meet mainstream demand, and the rest of the free-range UGC to meet long-tail demand. In this way, Himalaya FM has become the most concentrated and active platform for audio creators. With its massive audio content, it has accumulated a large number of users, and the number of active users is also leading the industry.

Platform roles: creator, content distribution platform, consumer.

Role interaction: Creators produce content and provide it to the platform. The platform distributes content to consumers. Consumers generate traffic and consumption. The platform rewards high-quality creative content with traffic based on consumer data. Creators gain more traffic through high-quality creations and thus create higher-quality content.

6. Product framework comparison

7. Visual performance comparison

M station visually:

The main site header image KV uses the classic IP girl M, with a strong black and purple tone, which forms a strong contrast with the white background, visually weakening the overall flatness of the site with white background and text. The visual impact from the second dimension is overwhelming, with high recognition and eye-catching dimensional wall. It caters well to the audience's aesthetic taste and expectations of the "dimensional wall".

The layout is mainly graphic and text, and the popularity of the content should be reflected as much as possible to attract users to enter. The cover images are mainly two-dimensional images, most of which are original illustrations, comics, and official posters. They adhere to M Station’s encouragement to prohibit anchors from showing their faces on the site in order to better meet users’ expectations for beautiful voices.

The site elements are in a cute Q style, with cat ears, cats, M girls, loading GIFs, main site floating windows, and the iconic startup sound, etc., with distinctive and classic IP elements and full of details.

M station content:

The content is mainly two-dimensional and radio dramas. Due to certain characteristics of users with two-dimensional attributes, M Station uses PGC to meet mainstream needs and weakens UGC to a great extent, which directly leads to the inability to reach an ideal level of activity.

In the classification tab and recommendation page content, the radio drama tab and radio drama content occupy the main position, and the banners are almost all radio dramas. As the largest ATM of M Station, M Station is nakedly fond of radio dramas and provides absolutely high-quality resources.

M station functions:

The functions and content are relatively intuitive, and the learning cost is low, but there is redundancy, and the content division needs to be improved compared to other similar products. 【Home】【I Listen】【Listening】【Discover】【My】

Home page: search, business category tab, recommendation

I listen: Download, Favorite, Purchased, History

Listening: Share, Like and Comment, Download, Collect and Subscribe, Reward, Barrage, Details

Discovery: Redundant business entrances such as hot searches, live broadcasts, radio dramas, event topics, news stations, redemption codes, and others

My: Personal Center, My Audio, Followers and Fans, Various Settings, Mall

Ximalaya FM visually:

The main site has no KV and a flat design. It is fairly standard and fresh, in line with the visual style of most mainstream entertainment applications, and is relatively friendly to user groups of various attributes.

The layout is mainly text and pictures, the cover picture is consistent with the content and the cover title is eye-catching, and most of them are official pictures and official posters. Users can enter the details page more accurately, reducing some of the costs caused by "trial and error". This may be because the contents themselves are mostly official resources with high popularity, and the popularity of the content is not reflected in the layout.

Ximalaya FM content:

As a tool product that focuses on content, Himalaya continues to enrich the capacity of the audio library, the completeness of audio-related information, the audio quality, and encourages users to create audio content. The content is diverse, covering a wider range of user groups and meeting the needs of different users. The massive audio content has accumulated a large number of active users. The PGC+UGC content production strategy uses PGC and introduced and supported high-quality UGC anchors to meet mainstream demand, and the remaining scattered UGC meets long-tail demand. In this way, Himalaya FM has become the most concentrated and active platform for audio creators.

At the product level, content organization and distribution are mainly accomplished in two ways: directly finding target content (search, personalized recommendations, rankings, subscriptions, etc.) and indirectly finding audio content with the help of UGC content (audio album recommendations and searches, and obtaining updates on friends and anchor pages).

Himalaya FM features:

It has relatively intuitive functions and content presentation, and has a low learning cost. It provides a platform for retail UGC content creation, and forms a relatively healthy ecosystem between "creators-platforms-consumers". 【Home】【I Listen】【Listening】【Discover】【My】

Home page: search, business category tab, recommendation, hot search list

I listen: follow up, subscription, history, download, recommendation

Listening: Share, Like and Comment, Download, Collect and Subscribe, Reward, Barrage, Details

Discover: Follow, Square, Funny Dubbing, Video

My: Personal Center, My Audio, Followers and Fans, Various Settings, Mall

8. Comparison of business operations

M Station - CV Traffic: CVs are encouraged to be certified on the platform. At the same time, an alarm function is added, which is another great benefit for voice control. The alarm includes voice bars for comics, voice bars for the main characters in radio dramas, and voice bars for CV anchors.

M Station-CV Exclusive Interview: Since 2017, M Station has set up the [M Voice Broadcast] column to conduct exclusive interviews with well-known CVs.

M Station - Offline Radio Drama Meeting: Combining online and offline, it allows paying users to get close to voice actors and have the opportunity to get autographs and take photos with them. It is undoubtedly a great way to promote, and a win-win cooperation for the platform and professional sound and dubbing studios.

On December 7, 2019, M Station also held a large-scale "Cat Ear Voice Actor Festival" at the Baoshan Sports Center in Shanghai. It was undoubtedly a radio drama carnival that met the needs of many voice-controlled and original danmei fans, and invited the main CVs of the popular radio dramas "The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation", "Peter Pan and Cinderella", "AWM", and "Tianbao Fuyaolu" to perform voice performances and stage plays on the platform. Well-known dubbing studios and popular CVs will participate in the performance, and the price of a ticket ranges from 300-1500, which is almost as much as the price of a concert.

M Station - Selling exclusive radio drama peripherals: An online peripheral mall has been opened, selling radio drama derivatives, audio pendants, audio greeting cards and other audio products. But at present, the Maoer Mall is still a bit useless. The simple and flat interface makes it difficult to attract the purchasing desire of users with two-dimensional attributes, and the content is scattered and scarce.

M Station - Offline Theme Store: At the end of 2018, "SPL" launched a crowdfunding campaign for derivatives, raising 7.71 million yuan in three days. Its radio drama theme restaurant then began operations in Shanghai in July 2020; in June 2019, new radio drama theme restaurants adapted from the criminal investigation drama "Broken Clouds" opened in Shanghai and Zhejiang; in August 2019, offline radio drama-themed dessert shops adapted from the campus drama "Sanye" began operations in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou, giving radio dramas a broader commercialization model.

M Station - Cross-border cooperation: various dubbing competitions in collaboration with games and animations; cooperation with popular big IPs, inviting well-known CVs to record voice packages and broadcast highlights; cooperation with well-known comics websites such as "Manman Comics" and "YouYaoQi Comics".

Himalaya - encourages creation and attaches importance to copyright: independent creation by C-end users and entry and cooperation by B-end users, on the one hand, enriches the types and diversity of program content to meet the needs of users with different preferences and fields; on the other hand, high-quality audio content comes from the screening and content review of creators. High-quality content is highly relevant and can more accurately meet the tastes of interested users✔️. However, as the number of users grew, more and more indecent content aroused disgust among many users, and even copyright infringements occurred. These contents were leaked on other self-media platforms, causing significant impacts. Not only did some high-quality content get removed from the shelves, but the platform was also removed from app stores. Himalaya has stepped up its efforts in content review and copyright protection to create a more comfortable atmosphere for sharers, creators, and listeners✖️.

Himalaya - Innovative activities emerge in an endless stream: whether it is the live voting activities with major popular variety shows, the platform's first 123 Knowledge Carnival in the field of knowledge payment, or the continuous cross-border marketing online and offline, they have all received good feedback and have even caused heated discussions in the news media and search platforms many times. From time to time, we hold recruitment events for platform anchors of different age groups. On the one hand, it encourages everyone to create and share, and on the other hand, it attracts users of a certain age group and certain fields, continuously promotes the generation of original audio, and further highlights the tone of Himalaya's universal creation.

Himalaya - cross-border cooperation: On the Himalaya platform, we can often hear audio works from authors of the cooperating platforms and high-quality audio programs from original audio producers and anchors. Himalaya gives them part of the traffic to increase their exposure. High-quality audio programs are gradually recognized by listeners, and eventually various top content producers appear on the platform. The top content producers in turn bring in users, forming a virtuous circle. In addition, Himalaya makes full use of user sharing, self-created listener circle dynamics, anchor interaction and friendship, fan groups, etc., to meet people with common interests. By adding friends, you can learn about new situations and share through dynamics. The superposition of these two systems provides Himalaya platform users with space to freely discuss and create audio content of interest.

3. Impact of the development of mobile audio market

In the "ear economy", the target groups of mobile audio products are highly overlapping, and the competition for user resources continues.

1) Content is homogeneous, and satisfaction still has room for improvement

It is still an irrefutable truth that content is king and user experience is the center of mobile audio products.

From the producer's perspective, mobile radio program content is mainly divided into two categories: PGC (professionally produced content) and UGC (user-generated content). With the rapid development of mobile radio, program content is moving towards the "PGC+UGC" model, with each broadcaster having its own focus. According to the data from iiMedia Research, 12.5% ​​of users said that the current mobile radio can fully meet their needs; 58.3% of users believe that mobile radio has basically met their needs; however, 29.2% of users are not satisfied with mobile radio, and mobile radio still has a lot of room for improvement in user satisfaction. Among them, Lizhi FM ranked first in user satisfaction, followed by Youting and Himalaya FM, ranking second and third respectively.

2) Copyright bottleneck needs to be broken through

As the value of mobile audio "portal" becomes increasingly prominent, the leading mobile radio stations in the market have begun to engage in bad behaviors such as quarrels and verbal battles in order to consolidate their market position, causing discordant voices in the market. In April 2015, Duoting FM and Lizhi FM were both removed from Apple's shelves due to copyright issues, and both companies pointed the finger at Himalaya. At the same time, Koala FM claimed that Qingting FM had pirated its exclusive copyrighted content, and Qingting FM refused to remove the content on the grounds that the content was authorized by Tencent. Long before this, Himalaya was complained by industry competitors for malicious competition and was forced to be removed from the Apple Store twice. On June 30, 2015, a similar incident occurred again. Himalaya and Lizhi were removed from Apple's shelves one after another, suspected of being maliciously manipulated by competitors. Himalaya, Litchi and Dragonfly ranked among the top three mobile radio stations and were removed from the shelves many times. It can be seen that copyright issues in the entire field of online audio are relatively confusing, because text copyright is easy to identify, but you have to listen to the entire audio to know whether there is any infringement, and it is also difficult to file copyright lawsuits, so piracy is widespread.

Behind the melee of mobile radio stations, what is highlighted is the copyright bottleneck of program content, especially the powerlessness of UGC content when facing copyright accusations. Therefore, including蜻蜓FM and Himalaya, are building an audio ecosystem by promoting PUGC, clarifying the boundaries of content, copyright, and business, hoping to create a better atmosphere for the development of the industry.

3) New channel war, fighting for the entrance to life services

The in-vehicle market has become a battleground for mobile radio stations. The commercial potential of mobile radio is not limited to mobile phones. In the future, there will be room for mobile radio in various terminals such as cars, aviation, and wearables. According to statistics, in the relatively closed environment of a car, with more than 200 million car owners currently listening to an average of 600 hours of audio programs per person per year, it is already a huge market. At present, many mobile audio products such as Himalaya, Dragonfly, and Koala have established cooperative relationships with automobile manufacturers. However, by cooperating with front-end manufacturers, we can only conquer the in-car entertainment of new cars. As for the huge market of 200 million existing vehicles, we still have to rely on aftermarket solutions, such as combining smart hardware to allow car owners to listen to online radio programs. In terms of products, Duoting FM was the first among its peers to launch the in-car smart hardware "Duoting V Radio"; Himalaya was not to be outdone and launched the in-car smart hardware "Suicheting". Koala FM already has a plan. It can make its own hardware or cooperate with hardware manufacturers as a content provider.

Mobile radio stations are competing for more entrances to life services. On wearable devices, Samsung Watch uses content from蜻蜓FM. Products developed by Himalaya, such as Shuke Smart Fairy Tale Machine and Tingshubao, have been launched one after another, allowing high-quality content to be effectively delivered to users in need through various terminals, completing the scene extension. It can be imagined that the application scenarios of mobile radio in the future are as follows: in a smart home, the lights, speakers, and refrigerators in the home can all listen to mobile radio. What is even more tempting is that each mobile radio station is a portal to life services.

Author: Lazy

Source: Lazy