What is the current status of short videos? Big data tells you that Douyin is more popular and Kuaishou is more profitable!

In recent years, the popularity of "short videos" has remained high. As of February 2018, the number of active users on short video comprehensive platforms and short video aggregation platforms reached 403.5 million and 165.5 million respectively. Short videos are bringing profound changes to users' lifestyles.

Short videos are beginning to take shape

Before 2011, short videos were still in the exploratory stage. Youku, Tudou, Ku6.com and other comprehensive video platforms vigorously developed the shooting model, which led to a large number of users producing content. Starting in 2011, this industry began to take shape, and Kuaishou GIF was launched. However, it was just a mobile phone software for making animated pictures, and it was not enough to be called a short video application.

Just four years later, Kuaishou became the largest short video app in China. And this year, short video apps began to enter a blowout period, with the number of products doubling. In 2016 and 2017, there were 235 products in total.

Big companies enter the game, and the battle is in full swing

In January 2018, Baidu Nani short video was launched, targeting Kuaishou, Miaopai and Meipai.

In April, Tencent restarted Weishi and spent 3 billion yuan in subsidies.

On May 11, Taobao Short Video held an internal press conference, announcing the launch of a short video app called "Duke", allowing "content" to drive "shopping".

Recently, Tencent has stepped up its layout in the field of short videos and added three new products, "Xiafan Video", "Sukan" and "Shiguang Short Video", which are benchmarked against "Xigua Video". According to people familiar with the matter, "this is a strategic product."

Not only are the BAT Big Three making their moves, but some other established Internet companies are also trying to strike while the iron is hot and share the netizens' traffic.

Pioneers are in danger

At present, Kuaishou and Douyin can each hold half of the market, but as independent short video platforms, they focus on social interaction and have limited coverage. Before Douyin became popular, pioneers such as Meipai and Xiaokaxiu performed very well in the short video field. Meipai, which was launched in May 2014, topped the AppStore free list for 24 consecutive days and became the number one in the AppStore global non-game downloads that month.

The unique information short video "Pear Video" won the top ten innovative cases of applied news communication in China in 2017, and in April this year, it received 617 million yuan in investment led by Tencent and Baidu.

"Xiao Ka Xiu" and "Miao Pai", which are also owned by Yixia Technology, have always been the official short video products of Sina Weibo. After reaching the E round of financing in 2016, the amount of financing reached US$500 million.

However, since the launch of Tik Tok, its unstoppable momentum has greatly weakened the power of these short videos.

Future development of short video products

The popularity of an industry can be seen from the intensity of national supervision. Anything that can seriously affect people's lifestyles and user value orientation will be slightly rectified by radio and television. This was also the case with the live quiz show before the New Year and the short videos recently.

Since April, many well-known short video products have been ordered to rectify or be removed from the shelves. WeChat and QQ have also suspended the direct playback function of short video App external links. The involved apps include Weishi, Kuaishou, Douyin, Xigua Video, Huoshan Short Video, etc. Perhaps these are only for the top camp products with greater influence, but the fire in the city gate will affect the fish in the pond. A large number of medium and long tail platforms may not have been suppressed by the top camp products and faced elimination, but they have been removed from the shelves. How to survive? Integration or going overseas, the future is unknown.

These rectifications are both a temporary pain and a time bomb for the products of large companies. In the future, they not only need to consider how to produce good content and strengthen content review, but also refine distribution channels and make recommendation mechanisms more intelligent.