Cheng Mengling 2021-06-17 12:16:28
Authors | Cheng Mengling
Edit | Yang Bocheng
“It’s another year of Momo Ceremony. It’s a great feeling in Shanghai this year. The live broadcast industry needs such a well-established veteran brother.” It was June 12, when Momo broadcasted the annual ceremony on the night of MOMO in Shanghai. Live the emotions sent by practitioners in the circle of friends for many years.
This is already the fifth annual festival created by Momo in a row. As in the past, this time the MOMO live broadcast annual festival is still full of lines. From the strong domineering screen on the eve of the ceremony, occupy the Bund, People’s Square, Xujiahui, Nanjing Road, Lujiazui, Shanghai Expo Valley and other well-known landmark areas such as major bus shelters, subways, buses, and office buildings, and occupy the twin towers of Shanghai Global Harbor LED display The huge display of the screen; the star-studded stars at the ceremony, Li Xiang + Li Ai + the host team of the left, Jackie Chan, Zhang Shaohan, Zhang Xinzhe, Hu Haiquan, VaVa Mao Yanqi, Gao Jin and other celebrities blessing, and dozens of popular Momo The anchors compete on the same stage, and both are “big-handed.”
Where does Mo Mo’s confidence come from?
According to Momo’s financial report for the first quarter of 2021, Momo’s 2021 Q1 net revenue was 3.470 billion yuan (approximately US$529.7 million), exceeding Wall Street’s expectations; if it is not measured in accordance with US GAAP, the first quarter of 2021 will be attributable to Momo’s parent company’s net profit was 633.7 million yuan (approximately 96.7 million U.S. dollars), and it was profitable for 25 consecutive quarters. As of December 31, 2020, Momo’s cash, cash equivalents, time deposits and short-term deposits, and restricted cash amounted to RMB 16.482 billion.
At the same time, the monthly active users of Momo also hit a record high-in March 2021, the monthly active users of Momo’s main App were 115.3 million, a record high. The monthly active users of the same period last year were 108 million. In the first quarter, the total number of paid users of Momo’s live broadcast service and value-added services reached 12.6 million (including 3.5 million paid users of Tantan). Continuous 25 quarters of profitability, sufficient cash flow, and monthly active users hit a record high is the confidence of Momo’s “massive”.
With the development of Internet technology and the popularization of smart phones, live broadcast platforms have emerged and are growing rapidly with the support of capital. But on the other hand, the problem of difficult profitability has been accompanied by the development of the live broadcast industry. IiMedia Consulting CEO Zhang Yi also said in an interview that there are more than 200 live broadcast platforms in the market, but only a few companies such as Momo and Weibo have achieved profitability. With most live broadcast platforms still trapped in profitable swamps, how can Momo break out of the profit dilemma and continue to make profits?
Persevere: the firm line of “social + live broadcast”
Jia Wei, vice president of Momo, once said in an interview: “Our value is not the value of content. Our value is actually interaction, the value of real-time interaction.” The value of Momo’s social interaction is emphasized here.
In recent years, the domestic live broadcast industry has developed rapidly, and more and more entrants have poured in. As the track becomes increasingly crowded, how to retain traffic for a long time has become a real pain point for the entrants. Obviously, it is difficult to achieve this in pure live broadcasting. Therefore, live broadcast platforms began to seek solutions, and “live broadcast +” began to penetrate the entire industry.
Momo is aiming at “social”. In 2018, after breaking the siege in the field of live broadcasting, the first thing Momo did was to acquire Tantan, a social platform for strangers. This move establishes Momo’s advantages under the unique positioning of social + live broadcasting. In December of that year, Momo had 113.3 million monthly active users. In the same period in 2017, Momo had 99.1 million monthly active users.
At the same time, the “social + live broadcast” model has also freed Momo from a single income model that can only rely on live broadcast. In the first quarter of 2021, the total number of paid users of Momo’s live broadcast service and value-added service after deduplication reached 12.6 million, of which Tantan paid 3.5 million users.
Social builds up user stickiness, and live broadcast builds a platform. Under the combined ecology of social + live broadcast, Momo’s social interaction is actually a multilateral relationship. There is a huge sticky space between anchors and fans, and between fans and fans.
It can be seen that when many domestic live broadcast platforms are transforming, they also imagine that they are socially dependent, but they rarely succeed. The main reason is: users’ inertial thinking about platform attributes. For live broadcast platforms, most users come to the platform to consume content instead of communicating thinking has become inertia. The reverse process of this thinking is very painful.
After Momo acquired Tantan, it already possesses social genes. Previously, Tantan executives also publicly stated that Tantan has become the largest social platform for the post-95 generation population, with an average age of 22 for female users and 24 for males. The integration of the two platforms of Momo and Tantan has enabled Momo to create a social + live broadcast highland that other platforms cannot match.
Innovation: Continuous innovation in content categories
What socially values is “interaction.” In order to make anchors and users more motivated, Momo is also constantly innovating in content categories. In the past few years, from making friends to dancing, making friends, singing, outdoor, to emotional talk, etc., Momo’s content categories have been continuously enriched.
On the one hand, focusing on social interaction, Momo continues to develop more interactive gameplay methods, such as the Anchor Summit, Magic Hunter and other gameplays that retain users well, integrate the interactive gift method in live broadcast, and further accelerate the development of users’ payment habits. Success, dig out more payment points. For example, the introduction of a new host model for chat rooms and interactive gifts have increased the revenue of chat rooms; optimization and enhancement of the user experience of Werewolf Killing, and the addition of innovative gameplay methods such as gifts have increased the revenue growth of Momo’s virtual gifts.
Ding Wenxiang, the head of Momo’s live broadcast operations, once said, “We have always believed that the entertainment live broadcast market is very huge. With the improvement of people’s living standards and the increase in public awareness of live broadcasts, the public’s participation in live broadcasts and their ability to pay are relatively greater. The promotion.”
On the other hand, Momo has been exploring various methods of live streaming in combination with the current environment. For example, during the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Momo launched an entertainment quiz live event “MOMO Lucky Head” to predict World Cup matches with the majority of netizens. In 2019, Momo and PP Sports organized the entertainment and competitive reality show “Burning! Girls”, in the form of cross-industry cooperation between well-known sports athletes and amateur anchors, aiming at young user groups and advocating a healthy lifestyle and life attitude; 2020 The “MOMO Live Concert Tour” created in 1999 is to allow high-quality anchors and celebrities to perform on the same stage, to explore and build potential new anchors on the platform from multiple directions.
While enriching platform content formats, it also opens up new space for the professionalization of anchors on the platform. Since 2017, Momo Live has launched the “MOMO Music Project” in which professional musicians tailor individual singles for singing anchors to help anchors achieve their music dreams. In addition, Momo officials have repeatedly titled film and television, variety shows, and self-produced live events, using powerful resources to push its anchors to participate in various activities, performing with first-line artists, and stepping out of the live broadcast room into the public’s view. For example, at the 70th French Cannes Film Festival, Momo was officially invited to send anchors and international movie stars on the red carpet ceremony of the opening ceremony; in the “City of Magic”, “I Love the Second Element” and other high-quality variety shows, web dramas ” Momo anchors are also seen in “Little Girl Going to the House to Reveal the Tiles”.
Momo is working hard to provide broadcasters with a full range of resources such as music, film and television, and variety shows, and through various methods to open up a career path for broadcasters.
to sum up
As a leader in the live broadcast industry, while exploring new gameplay for the industry, Momo is also actively fulfilling its social responsibilities.
Since 2018, the Momo platform has successively held a series of public welfare classes such as “Bringing Village Children to the Museum” and “Science Lessons for Rural Children”, and “Intangible Cultural Heritage” and “Jing Cai Gathering” etc. to promote traditional culture. Energy live broadcast activities; the establishment of Momo Public Welfare Fund, which has accumulated more than 60 million yuan of external donations; the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the establishment of a 10 million yuan anti-epidemic scientific research public welfare fund, and a 5 million yuan donation to the Zhong Nanshan Medical Foundation. The team of Academician Yu Zhong Nanshan fights against the new type of coronavirus pneumonia prevention and treatment related sciences. At the same time, it faces five well-known domestic medical schools, including Peking University School of Medicine, Fudan University Shanghai Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Tongji School of Medicine, Wuhan University School of Medicine, and Central South University Xiangya School of Medicine. Schools, the establishment of medical school aid scholarships to help medical education…Nowadays, realizing social value has become a new strategic focus of Momo. Through the influence of the platform, it has made contributions in the direction of public welfare and positive energy guidance. Create a good corporate image while maintaining society.
Momo, which went online in 2011, is ten years old this year. As a veteran of the industry, it is still full of youthful vitality. Based on the fundamentals, dare to innovate. The person in charge of Momo said that in the future, Momo will continue to make efforts in anchor training and content optimization. At the same time, it will continue to make more attempts and efforts in public welfare and positive energy to give full play to the social value of the platform.
.