Douyu Product Analysis Report

Douyu is a bullet screen-style live broadcast sharing platform that provides users with live video and event broadcast services. The rapid development of China's live streaming industry began in 2014, when the largest game live streaming platform YY Game Live was renamed Huya Live, and Douyu TV was developed from the live broadcast of AcFun, the previous largest barrage video website.

1. Introduction

With the exit of major live streaming platforms such as Panda, Chushou, and Zhanqi in recent years, the competition among game live streaming platforms has become increasingly clear and fierce.

On the one hand, with the rise of short video platforms and live streaming with goods, the focus of business expansion of game live streaming platforms has also become clearly differentiated; on the other hand, with the successive listing of the two leading platforms, Douyu and Huya, and the financing and business expansion of many Internet giants, the "two super and many strong" game live streaming industry pattern has been basically established.

With the rise of new industry trends such as cloud gaming technology, live streaming with goods, and virtual anchors, the business of traditional game live streaming platforms will inevitably expand into new dimensions, and the future of the game live streaming industry will be even more exciting.

2. Market Analysis

1. Industry Analysis

Image source: iResearch

From the perspective of the industrial chain, the roles in the game live streaming industry can be roughly divided into four categories: content copyright holders, content providers, business partners and platform providers. From the perspective of content provision, there are subtle differences in the industrial chain between the UGC content provided by the anchors and the PGC content such as game competitions and game variety shows.

In the UGC content production process, there are unions/MCNs and other brokerage companies that assist the platform in supporting, managing, and operating anchors, as well as middle-office companies that provide big data services to these companies. These companies mainly gain a foothold in the industry by solving platform management and anchor operation problems, ensuring the stability and high quality of content provision.

A small amount of UGC content has also been transformed into PUGC content under the guidance of the union/MCN, which enables the provision of high-quality content more stably and efficiently, and further explore new commercial monetization models.

The PGC content production process involves event organizing companies that provide services such as contracting offline event venues and event promotion. These companies ensure the development and promotion of offline events and complete offline businesses that Internet companies are not good at.

Image source: iResearch

With the decline of Chushou and Zhanqi Live, the decline of the old game live streaming platforms has become more and more obvious. In contrast, with the fierce competition between Douyu and Huya and the entry of many video platform giants, the live streaming business of Bilibili and Kuaishou has also been growing rapidly in the past two years.

In addition, the business extension of other old-fashioned entertainment live streaming platforms is also progressing slowly.

Bilibili's revenue share in 2020 shows that live streaming and value-added revenue have become the bulk of the company's total revenue. Image source: Tencent.com

Image source: iiMedia Research

Looking at the development of the entire live broadcast industry, the industry initially originated from traditional live broadcast content such as shows and game live broadcasts. With the rise of short videos, the live streaming industry has also developed into a period of flourishing development with multiple vertical categories and forms.

With the rise of live streaming sales, the emergence of innovative models such as live streaming + e-commerce, live streaming + tourism, etc., the live streaming industry has truly ushered in a period of prosperity in development.

2. Market size

Image source: iResearch

From a market perspective, the scale of the game live streaming market has continued to grow rapidly in recent years, but when the market reaches a certain size, it is normal for the growth rate of the market size to slow down. According to data, the game live streaming market is expected to reach 49.71 billion yuan in 2022. For the live streaming industry that has repeatedly broken industry expectations, this is not an unattainable number.

Image source: iResearch

From the user's perspective, the number of users of game live streaming platforms reached 300 million in 2019, an increase of 15.4% from 2018. Judging from the estimated data for 2020, the user growth rate does not seem to have declined much.

This is because in 2020, under the influence of objective factors of the new coronavirus, the increase in the number of people demanding entertainment at home directly promoted the steady growth of the target users of the game live streaming industry in 2020. This is the main reason why the user growth rate in 2020 remained almost unchanged.

What is certain is that the growth rate of game live streaming users will slow down significantly in the next few years. Under such circumstances, how to improve the conversion rate of existing active users into paying users and the growth rate of ARPPU will become an important goal for all game live streaming platforms.

Image source: iResearch

From the perspective of market distribution, revenue from live streaming business has always been the bulk of the revenue for game live streaming platforms, averaging around 90%. As individual platforms expand into new businesses such as cloud gaming and live streaming, the revenue sources of live streaming platforms will become more diversified, and the proportion of live streaming revenue will slowly decline.

Looking specifically at the live broadcast content, the types of live broadcasts on game live broadcast platforms are not limited to game live broadcasts. Entertainment live broadcasts account for 22.4% of the popular viewing section, and even account for 31.6% of the top 1000 most popular anchors on the game platform.

In addition, according to the income data of popular show hosts, the ARPPU and activity of the show live broadcast user group seem to be higher than those of game live broadcast. Allocating more resources to entertainment live broadcast is also the next development direction that game live broadcast platforms can consider.

3. Market dynamics

Image source: iResearch

Image source: Xiaohulu Data

There is no doubt that the types of games broadcast live by top anchors certainly have a certain positive correlation with the popularity of the games. MOBA (Honor of Kings, League of Legends) and FPS (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, CrossFire) as old mainstream game types have undoubtedly become the gathering place for many top anchors.

In addition, the once popular emerging game type "Auto Chess" caused a craze when it first appeared in 2019, but in terms of data, its revenue and number of live broadcasts can only be considered mediocre. The top games (Teamfight Tactics, Honor of Kings Simulation War) have also benefited from the popularity of MOBA games to a certain extent, and their vitality still needs long-term consideration by the market.

Image source: iResearch

It was also in 2019 that the new model of live streaming + e-commerce emerged, and live streaming with goods became a new e-commerce/live streaming model that everyone was paying attention to. As time goes by, the dominance of e-commerce platforms is gradually shifting towards short video platforms. As a business module that can bring in huge traffic and revenue, it naturally becomes an important business expansion direction for game live streaming platforms.

During the epidemic, due to the weakening of offline retail channels, live streaming sales reached its peak, and game live streaming platforms have also actively explored ways for live streaming sales to survive on their own platforms. Some successful examples include charity sales to help farmers and the "618" and "Double 11" shopping festivals.

As to whether the game live streaming platforms can still get a share of the live streaming e-commerce market in 2021 and make the "Shopping Festival" an e-commerce festival truly become an evergreen revenue source for the game live streaming industry, it still needs to be tested by the market and time.

3. Product Analysis

1. Product positioning

Douyu is a live streaming platform that focuses on games, including but not limited to shows, live streaming, outdoor content, etc. It is also moving towards a pan-entertainment platform with e-sports as its core and integrating "live streaming + video + community".

2. Structural analysis

Douyu product architecture diagram

According to the major business directions, Douyu can be divided into four business directions: live broadcast, video, community and other extended businesses. Compared with other game live streaming platforms, Douyu is more diversified in its business direction. Live streaming + video + community, an independent but also intertwined business design model, is one of the secrets of Douyu's high monthly active users.

In the early days, Douyu mainly relied on sponsoring e-sports teams and recruiting top anchors to develop into a game live streaming platform mainly focusing on e-sports games. Douyu, which expanded rapidly with excellent marketing, gradually enriched its live broadcast section, adding multi-platform game sections such as mobile games and stand-alone games, as well as other types of live broadcast sections such as entertainment (shows) and outdoor.

After developing for a period of time, Douyu, which has achieved some success, has also been continuously expanding its business lines, adding community, video and other business modules. At the same time, it has also broadened the breadth of its entertainment live broadcast sector, and its development direction has also shifted from a game live broadcast platform to a pan-entertainment platform.

3. User analysis

1) Role Analysis

On the Douyu platform, users can be roughly divided into three roles: content consumers, content providers and brokerage companies.

• Content consumers: They are the main target users of the platform, also known as viewers/fans, who can be divided into ordinary viewers and paying viewers. Compared with ordinary viewers, paying viewers have more positive feedback from content providers and platforms (gift effects, anchor attention, etc.), and can also be granted some additional rights (live broadcast room management, community management);
• Content providers are the core of platform content production, including anchors/up hosts/event organizers and other specific roles. This type of users is not only the source of platform revenue value, but also an important guarantee for user activity;
• Brokerage company: It assists the platform in managing and packaging anchors. It is generally in the form of a union and an MCN company. Unions mainly exist in the live broadcast industry, while MCN focuses on the short video field. The vast majority of Douyu’s brokerage companies are in the form of unions.

The agency not only shares the pressure of managing anchors on the platform, but also plays a role in cultivating and promoting new anchors. It is a bridge connecting the platform and the anchors, and provides systematic operational support for the development of anchors.

2) User portrait

By collecting Douyu’s user data through a data analysis platform, we can find that the ratio of male and female users using the Douyu APP is not much different, with slightly more male users than female users; users are mainly distributed in first-tier/quasi-first-tier cities, and their age is mainly under 40 years old, among which users under 24 years old account for the largest proportion, which indicates that the target users are mainly students in big cities, young people who have just graduated, and a small number of middle-aged people, aged approximately 16-24 and 32-40 years old.

Based on the collectible user data, the following user portraits can be listed:

4. Analysis of core business lines

Since the main target users of game live streaming platforms are game players, who use computers frequently, the above data shows that there are more active PC client users than mobile phone users in terms of usage scenarios. Specific functions will also be divided into PC/web/mobile clients for separate analysis to correspond to different usage scenarios of different users.

The target user group of the PC client is mainly live broadcast viewers, and the target user group of the web and mobile client is all Douyu’s target users.

1) Live broadcast function

Various operational activities are an important way to increase revenue flow. In terms of activity functions, Douyu Live has many ways to play but the design of the live broadcast room does not appear to be too complicated. The left side of the PC version only displays core activities such as the fish pond, daily sign-in, game recommendations and task hall, while the right side displays the gift-giving function, gift backpack and balance.

The web version has the same functional design as the PC version. The mobile version only displays three core activities that can be closed on the right: game recommendations (advertising revenue), viewing tasks (user activity), and anchor tasks (live broadcast, revenue). Due to the importance of these activities and the data behind them, they are listed separately.

Other functions that are only available on mobile phones, such as PK, intimate interaction, and mini-games, are placed in the "interactive" function area at the bottom alongside the fish pond, first-charge activities, and gift-giving functions. It can be inferred that they are mainly aimed at the mobile entertainment live broadcast audience user group.

The special feature of Douyu Live Broadcast Room, which is also the core activity mode, is “Fish Pond”, which is a reward system based on user activity. Users obtain fish food by completing a series of tasks, and then use the fish food to feed "sharks" or participate in activities such as lotteries and expeditions.

The amount of fish food given away in the live broadcast room is reflected by the weight of the "shark" and is directly linked to the popularity of the live broadcast. The more fish food given, the more popularity the live broadcast room will gain. Activities such as fish food raffles and expeditions can bring virtual props/fish balls as rewards to participating users.

The purpose of designing the fish pond is to increase the conversion rate of paying users while ensuring user activity.

You do not need to pay to complete tasks or participate in fish pond activities, but there will be factors such as rankings and contribution levels to stimulate consumption during the activities. If users want to get more fish food or increase their contribution levels, they need to complete some fish food tasks that require giving paid gifts.

In the positive cycle of participating in activities → obtaining positive feedback → stronger willingness to participate in activities, user activity and conversion rate are greatly improved.

PC live broadcast function area

Mobile live broadcast function area

In terms of interactive functions, Douyu’s barrage settings have many differences and functions. The barrage categories are divided into ordinary barrage, fan colored barrage that increases with the level of the live broadcast room, super barrage, and barrage exclusive to nobles above Viscount, which have a high degree of distinction among users.

In addition, barrages can be sent with emoticons, including emoji emoticons and Douyu emoticon packages. At the same time, some high-value gifts/high-level noble activations/site-wide speakers will be displayed in the barrage in a special style (can be blocked).

In terms of live broadcast pop-ups, Douyu’s pop-ups are basically events initiated by the anchor such as lotteries/predictions, or pop-ups to follow the anchor, and no advertisements or other activity pop-ups will pop up. This design improves user concentration and viewing experience, but also reduces revenue flow to a certain extent.

In terms of gift-giving function, Douyu’s gifts are divided into free gifts (consumable fish balls) and paid gifts (consumable shark fins). Free gifts can only help the anchor increase his popularity, while paid gifts can truly be converted into revenue flow and anchor income.

The prices of general paid gifts are 0.1, 0.2, 1, 6, 20, 123, 500, 2000 (the unit is shark fin, shark fin: RMB = 1:1), among which the anchor price is 6 shark fins, which is almost the lowest price for small and medium-sized anchors to thank for gifts during live broadcasts. In addition, there are also zone-exclusive gifts and fan-exclusive gifts (with fan cards available for gifting) set according to the live broadcast zones.

Such a price sets the minimum payment line at 6 yuan through the price anchoring effect. It is a payment price that can strike a balance between the conversion rate of paying users and ARPPU, while also ensuring the payment experience of "rich" users.

2) Video function

At the end of 2017, with the emergence of the short video trend, Douyu launched a video module. The slogan at the time was "Watch game short videos on Douyu." Over time, Douyu's video business has shifted from short gaming videos to a video platform with gaming as its core that expands across all fields.

The design of Douyu's video function module is generally similar to that of another video website - Bilibili, and its functions are quite different in the three clients (web, PC, and mobile phone). However, in terms of video content, Douyu’s video business is still more inclined towards a game video website. At the same time, it also supports the shooting and uploading of short videos (vertical screen videos) on mobile phones.

PC Client Video Home Page

From the design of the PC client homepage, it is not difficult to find that the content of the Douyu PC client video section is mainly divided into five major directions: games, entertainment, digital, life and entertainment.

It can be seen that the purpose of the video module on the Douyu PC client is to guide live broadcast users and provide video content for users in the intervals between live broadcasts. The interface is relatively simple and clear, and it is not possible to perform interactive operations such as liking videos, sending barrages, etc. If users really need video interaction, they can go to the web client or mobile client to use it.

PC terminal function module list

In addition, it can be seen from the PC client function list that the Douyu video module does not have a high priority on the PC client, and can even be folded with a click, which is also reflected in the video playback interface.

However, the web client is different from the PC client. The video partitions are more comprehensive and the functional entrances are also richer. In terms of structure and function, it is a completely mature video website design. The disadvantage is that there is less valuable content and users are not willing to interact.

Web video home page

The design of the mobile video module is similar to that of most video websites, and the homepage is a personalized video information flow recommended to users.

Mobile client video module home page

Clicking the search box will turn the page into a search page, showing history/hot search list and video categories. It is speculated that the classification function is placed here because it currently has a lower priority/simplified video homepage UI.

Mobile client video search page

The design of the video playback page is also similar to that of Bilibili. It has like/coin/comment/share functions, video tags and recommended videos under the playback window. It is a relatively standard mobile video playback page.

Mobile client video playback page

Overall, Douyu has invested considerable resources in its video business and has created a relatively mature video section. However, it also has defects such as the lack of a community interactive atmosphere, a lack of valuable content, and serious homogeneity of video content (recorded broadcasts), which still require subsequent iterations for continuous improvement.

3) Community Function

Douyu’s community function has a long history. In 2016, the Fish Bar function was launched within a few months of the official launch of the application. But before 2017, Yuba’s operating data was not good. At the beginning of 2017, the cold start through anchors and recommendation pages provided certain content, and Yuba data began to increase steadily.

The explosive growth of Yuba began after it participated in the Douyu Carnival event in 2018, through offline promotion and the operation of Yuba by top anchors. As a combination of live streaming and community, Yuba should be positioned as a user communication center for the entire vertical field of the Douyu platform.

The interface design of the web page is exactly the same as that of the PC client. The main information flow is the updates released by the anchor. Click the list on the left to switch the content displayed in the information flow. Since the popularity of small and medium-sized anchors in Yuba is relatively low, there are also popular small and medium-sized anchors in Yuba recommended for traffic on the right page.

Douyu PC web client Fishbar homepage

The mobile version of Yuba is divided into 4 sections, focusing on anchor updates, recommended updates, event divisions and Yuba categories. The information push for attention dynamics and recommended dynamics are in the form of feed flow and waterfall flow respectively, providing diversified content. It is speculated that the reason why the event section is placed in the Yuba UI module is to attract community traffic/streamline the homepage UI interface.

Douyu Mobile Client Fish Bar Home Page

As a special feature of Douyu, Yuba has built a live broadcast vertical community similar to Baidu Tieba for live broadcast viewers. As a community module, it provides UGC content production, improves user activity, and strengthens the connection between anchors and users.

The existing problem is that the active users of Yuba are largely concentrated in the Yuba of big anchors. The popularity bonus effect on big anchors is far greater than the help to small and medium-sized anchors, and it is difficult for users to switch to other Yuba. What will be the future direction of Yuba, which is not very popular?

According to Douyu’s current development direction, Yuba will continue to develop into a comprehensive community with live streaming content as its core.

4. Competitive Product Analysis

1. Identify your competitors

Since Douyu’s current main focus is still game live streaming, it is not considering listing live streaming platforms in other fields as competitors (Huajiao, CCtalk, Douyin Live, etc.).

According to Qimai data, the top three search results for game live streaming related keywords in the past month are Douyu, Huya, and Penguin Esports. The core business of the three is game live streaming. Except that Penguin Esports' target users are more inclined to mobile game players, the usage purposes and scenarios of Douyu and Huya users are almost the same, and the target user groups basically overlap.

In addition, Kuaishou and Bilibili have also gradually begun to exert their strength in the game live streaming track. Thanks to the traffic accumulated in the short video platform field, Kuaishou’s user activity quickly surpassed other game live streaming platforms.

According to statistics from the Oriental Securities Research Institute, as of January 2021, the number of Kuaishou game anchors broadcasting has surpassed the total number of Douyu + Huya + Penguin Esports game anchors broadcasting. Bilibili disclosed in its fourth-quarter 2020 financial report that revenue from value-added service businesses, mainly live streaming, premium membership, and comics, reached 1.25 billion yuan, accounting for 33% of total revenue in Q4. With its unique business model and almost unshakable position in the ACG vertical field, Bilibili is continuously expanding the commercialization path of its live broadcast business.

Since the current number of active users and revenue of Penguin Esports are quite different from those of Douyu and Huya, and their user groups are relatively consistent, I chose Huya, Kuaishou, and Bilibili Live as Douyu’s main competitors.

2. Main business distribution

Main business distribution table of Douyu, Huya, Kuaishou and Bilibili

It can be seen that in the general direction, the choices made by Douyu and Huya are similar. Both are gradually building up barriers for pan-entertainment live broadcast platforms with the live broadcast + video model. At the same time, their positioning and monetization models are also converging. The similarity in business model and product positioning is bound to lead to scarce resources - a price war among top anchors. This battle between Douyu and Huya has not ended since the "Thousands of Broadcasters War" in 2018.

In terms of expanding its business, Huya chose to develop a higher-profit and less competitive companionship business, while Douyu chose a more ambitious community business. This is also one of the reasons why Douyu has the phenomenon of "high monthly active users and low revenue".

Video platforms such as Bilibili and Kuaishou have chosen to develop in the conventional video platform model of video + live streaming + e-commerce. Due to the huge differences in their target user groups, there is less competition in business, which is mainly reflected in the live streaming aspect. Kuaishou Live has a huge user base with distinct user attributes and high stickiness.

According to statistics, the popularity of the "Cross Fire" section of Kuaishou Live is even equivalent to the sum of all other platforms. This is a reflection of the benefits of Kuaishou's user group attributes and user stickiness.

Bilibili, a video platform that started out as an ACG vertical, has established a firm foothold in the live streaming industry by relying on pan-two-dimensional live streaming content and the emerging live streaming type "virtual anchor". At the end of 2019, Bilibili signed Feng Timo as the exclusive agent for the League of Legends finals, which also represented that Bilibili officially entered the game live streaming track.

3. Data Analysis

Since Kuaishou and Bilibili have not yet announced the specific operating data of their live streaming business, we only analyzed the public operating data from some financial reports of Douyu and its main competitor Huya.

Judging from the specific data on revenue and number of paying users, Huya has continued to lead in terms of revenue amount and ARPPU, while Douyu has an advantage in the number of paying users and payment conversion rate. When reflected in specific products, it reflects Huya's outstanding ability to attract revenue and Douyu's ability to attract users to pay.

The reason why Huya leads in revenue can be easily seen from the price setting of paid gifts. The prices of general paid gifts are 0.1, 6.6, 66, 88, 99, 300, 520, 1000, and 5000 (in RMB).

It is not difficult to find that both the anchor price and the premium gift price are higher than Douyu. In addition, its VIP price has a low threshold for the next month (the lowest level is 50 yuan for the first month and 10 yuan for the next month). Both "rich" and civilian paying users can have a good payment experience and subsequent willingness to pay.

Douyu’s advantages in user numbers and conversion rates come from its lower anchor price, gift price setting and numerous operational activities.

In Douyu’s gift/recharge interface, a striking first-charge discount reminder box will pop up for ordinary users, and some small paid tasks/thresholds are set up in its special fish ponds and numerous live broadcast room interactive functions, effectively increasing users’ willingness to pay.

In addition, it can be seen from the chart that Douyu suffered a month-on-month loss in the fourth quarter of 2020, mainly because the growth of various costs exceeded the growth of revenue.

In the fourth quarter, Douyu’s revenue costs increased 23.7% year-on-year to 2.088 billion yuan. Among them, Douyu's revenue sharing and content costs increased by 25.6% year-on-year to 1.852 billion yuan. The increase in this part of the cost was mainly due to Douyu's increased investment in e-sports broadcasting and e-sports event content.

In addition, Douyu's broadband costs in the fourth quarter increased by 12.7% year-on-year to 170 million yuan, sales and marketing expenses increased by 27.3% year-on-year to 170 million yuan, R&D expenses increased by 18.6% year-on-year to 119 million yuan, and administrative expenses increased by 54% year-on-year to 117 million yuan. The substantial increase in many expenses ultimately led to Douyu's deficit in Q4.

But in the long run, the losses may be worth it.

Judging from MAU, Douyu’s monthly active users do not seem to be as good as imagined, and its MUA on mobile terminals has always been surpassed by Huya, which once went all in on mobile terminals. It is worth noting that Douyu’s MAU reached 193 million in Q3 2020, a record high.

This is because Douyu has a high coverage rate in gaming event copyrights and a large number of contracted teams, and the contracted teams cover the vast majority of top teams in the industry.

At the same time, Douyu also launched an account data interoperability system in Q3, covering many popular games under Tencent, such as "League of Legends", "Honor of Kings", and "Game for Peace", which undoubtedly played a significant role in promoting Douyu's user growth in Q3. As for how to increase monthly active users on mobile devices, it needs to continue to expand related content in the community and video.

4. Comprehensive analysis

1) Douyu: A diversified platform with e-sports at its core

The core of content production on a live streaming platform is the anchor, who is also the starting point of all revenue. Douyu’s early development strategy was similar to that of most game live streaming platforms, focusing on the content core of the live streaming platform - top anchors.

When the industry was just beginning to develop, Douyu had already become a signing platform for a large number of popular anchors and a sponsor company for e-sports teams. It was among the best in terms of platform traffic and popularity at the time, and also obtained a large amount of financing in the early stages of its launch.

As industry competition enters a fierce state, although Douyu is still in a long-term loss situation, it has become one of the most famous game live streaming platforms.

While adhering to content-centric rapid monetization to achieve revenue, Douyu is also actively exploring diversified product forms. It launched businesses such as Fish Bar and Video when its early products were still in the introduction stage. After several years of polishing, it has achieved some results, and this will also be Douyu’s main business development direction in the future.

As the platform continues to develop, Douyu has also left its footprints in various emerging businesses. Before the rise of the live streaming + e-commerce sales model, Douyu started cooperating with JD.com. During various e-commerce promotion festivals, Douyu actively combined its own advantages and cooperated with e-commerce platforms.

During the 2020 epidemic, Douyu also launched a new model of live streaming + charity, using the influence of its anchors to drive the development of poverty-stricken areas and enhance the company's credibility in front of the government and society.

Not satisfied with traditional technology, Douyu is also actively exploring the application possibilities of new technologies. In 2020, Douyu's total number of invention authorizations was 458, ranking seventh among Internet companies and first in the game live streaming industry.

While aligning the direction of technological innovation with user needs, Douyu is committed to providing users with a more interesting live broadcast experience through technological innovation, thereby gradually strengthening its own competitive barriers.

Although Douyu’s specific business is diversified in its mature stage, it is not difficult to find its main development direction: to create a diversified pan-entertainment platform with e-sports as the core and "live broadcast + video + community".

2) Huya: a value-oriented pan-entertainment live streaming platform

Compared with Douyu, which has been spending a lot of money on expansion, Huya, China's earliest listed live streaming platform, has always been developing in a high-value direction. In the early days, Huya invested a lot of resources in the creation of mobile products. In the process of discovering big anchors, it also focused on supporting small and medium-sized anchors, laying the foundation for traffic.

At the same time, Huya had already noticed the importance of technology to live streaming when many of its competitors were still in the "recruiting" stage. Huya's slogan is "Technology-driven entertainment - barrage-style interactive live streaming platform." Among live streaming platforms, Huya was the first to provide HTML5 live streaming, Blu-ray, original HD live streaming and other technologies, ensuring the user's viewing experience and establishing its advantage early on with its technological leadership.

When the situation of "two supers and many strongs" emerged, Huya began its all-out competition with Douyu in e-sports and top anchors.

As of now, Huya has occupied most of the top anchors in the League of Legends section. At the same time, it spared no expense, poaching the anchor "Wei Shen" at a high price and signing the retired popular player "uzi", which further demonstrated its determination to obtain the top anchor resources. In the field of e-sports, Huya not only sponsors top teams and e-sports events, but also signs numerous live broadcast contracts with retired professional players.

Huya's development direction oriented towards high-value businesses is also reflected in its overseas business and companionship business. In 2018, Huya launched its overseas version NIMO TV, with its main markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Although its data has not been disclosed for the time being, it has achieved tens of millions of MAUs by the end of 2018, and its business strength should not be underestimated.

In April 2020, Huya split its companion gaming business into a separate product, streamlining Huya's functions while officially entering a new industry.

3) Kuaishou: Continue to explore the lower-tier markets

Kuaishou’s live broadcast function was launched in 2016. After four years of development, the monthly active users of Kuaishou’s live broadcast business have reached more than 200 million, and its live broadcast revenue also accounts for the largest share of its total revenue.

Judging from its game live streaming business, Kuaishou still insists on its expansion into the lower-tier market, focusing on games with a high overlap between its target users and its own (Honor of Kings, Peace Elite, Cross Fire), and quickly seizes the market with its huge traffic.

As for the future development direction, Kuaishou will continue to start with mobile games with high user fit, gradually develop its game live broadcast business, and increase the importance of game live broadcast in its live broadcast business.

4) Bilibili: Expanding the user base

Due to the overlap between the two-dimensional user group and the game player group, Bilibili has been like a fish in water in the field of game live streaming from the very beginning.

Bilibili started to fully develop its live streaming business in 2019, poaching the anchor "Feng Timo" from Douyu Entertainment at a high price and winning the exclusive rights to live stream the League of Legends Global Finals in mainland China from 2020 to 2022, marking the official launch of Bilibili's game live streaming business.

Bilibili, which started out as a video platform in the AVG field, has been looking for ways to expand its user base.

The live broadcast business is the perfect choice to complement and support its original video business. After the live broadcast business is added, a new entrance for attracting users will be added based on its PUGC and OGC. Compared with a single video business, the live broadcast + video model is more helpful in expanding its user base while maintaining a community interactive atmosphere.

Bilibili’s brand upgrade is gradually upgrading from “videos that users are interested in” to “consumption scenarios that users are interested in.” Opening up more marketing scenarios, such as live streaming, can also establish more connections with its users. Its senior management also admitted that 2021 will be an important year for Bilibili to fully open up the commercial ecosystem of its live streaming business. Bilibili's development in the field of game live streaming has just begun.

V. Conclusion

The end of the “Thousands of Broadcasts War” in 2018 did not usher in a period of rest and recuperation for Douyu, but rather a period of rapid growth through various business expansions.

The future of the game live streaming industry does not only depend on the development of the current vertical field, but more importantly, the vitality that various innovative businesses bring to the entire industry market. Whether Douyu can increase its competitiveness in the game live streaming industry through the construction of its video and community businesses in the future still needs to be tested by the market.

Author: Composer

Source: Composer