Yangcheng Evening News reporter Wang Danyang
Recently, Tencent Video, the leader in the long video industry and with hundreds of millions of members, announced a price increase, including adjusting the prices of Tencent Video VIP and Super Video VIP at 0:00 on April 20 for non-continuous membership packages.
In fact, in the past two years, VIP members of various video platforms have been increasing their prices one after another.
In the past six months alone, iQiyi, Mango TV, and Migu Video have successively raised membership prices again in the months from the end of last year to the beginning of this year.
Video VIP members are on the rise
According to the announcement of the price adjustment of Tencent Video VIP members, the most frequently used Tencent Video VIP monthly cards and the prices of various packages of Super Video VIP remain unchanged. The continuous monthly subscription price of film and television VIP has been adjusted from 30 yuan to 35 yuan, and the price of Tencent Video VIP annual card has been adjusted from 253 yuan to 258 yuan.
In addition, the notice states that users who are already in the automatic renewal status of Tencent Video VIP or Super Video VIP before 0:00 on April 20 this year, if they do not change the current automatic renewal status, will enjoy the pre-adjustment renewal price discount until October 23.
In fact, the price increase of Tencent Video members is not an isolated case in the industry, nor is it a pioneer.
In December last year, iQIYI was the first to announce that it had raised the price of its Gold VIP membership subscription.
Gold VIP ordinary monthly membership has been raised from 25 yuan to 30 yuan; continuous monthly subscription has been raised from 19 yuan to 22 yuan; ordinary season card membership has been raised from 68 yuan to 78 yuan; continuous season package has been raised from 58 yuan to 63 yuan; ordinary and consecutive year memberships have been raised from 68 yuan to 78 yuan Card membership prices remain unchanged at 248 yuan and 218 yuan respectively; star diamond membership prices remain unchanged.
Influence the online life of over 100 million people
Although the price increase of video members ranges from 3 yuan to 10 yuan, considering the scale of video users and the length of use, the impact of the price increase of video members on users is quite concerned about the "price sensitivity" effect of chai, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea.
According to Guotai Junan's research, from 2017Q3 to 2020Q3, the growth rate has slowed down after the number of paid members of the long video platform headed by "Aiyouteng" exceeded 100 million.
At the same time, the 2021 annual report shows that the number of paid members of Tencent Video increased by 1% year-on-year to 124 million.
After the price increase of the video platform last year, many netizens felt "unhappy" complaining about the price adjustment this time. The general price increase in the video industry has led to a higher cost of watching dramas.
Some netizens also expressed their understanding: "Isn't it just the money for a cup of milk tea? Spending money can save time watching advertisements."
What's the reason for the price hike?
But even if Tencent Video has hundreds of millions of members and is firmly in the "top spot" in the field of long-term video, the long-term video industry faces high investment, high risk, and unprofitability.
Previously, iQIYI had been unable to turn losses for 11 consecutive years.
But price increases alone are not enough. iQIYI has also greatly reduced losses by optimizing its structure.
According to the 2021 financial report, Tencent Video has consolidated its No. 1 position in the Chinese market with diversified content such as animation, drama series and sports.
Given the recent market environment, steps are being taken to optimize costs and reduce Tencent Video's financial losses while maintaining its leadership.
At the same time, Tencent’s financial report in the fourth quarter of last year showed that media advertising revenue including news, video and music was 3.2 billion yuan, down 25% year-on-year, mainly due to the decrease in advertising revenue from services such as Tencent Video.
At the same time, the low price of domestic video platform membership fees in the international market is also one of the important reasons.
As early as two years ago, iQIYI CEO Gong Yu once said at the financial report meeting that the price of iQIYI's gold membership at that time was actually set 9 years ago, but due to market competition, it has not changed for 9 years.
Compared with providing users with rich and high-quality content, this price is too low.
For long video platforms, will the price increase lead to member cancellations and a decline in paying users?
According to industry insiders, the membership payment of video sites is related to the attractiveness of the content, and the platform mainly relies on high-quality content to attract users to pay.
On the one hand, the price increase of members will stimulate video websites to improve their performance, and more high-quality works may be born.
But after the same price increase, if the video content is not good or there is no popular content for a long time, users will naturally not renew or switch to other platforms.
According to Guotai Junan's judgment, the subscription members of the long-term video platform on the large screen are currently at a low payment rate and are in a stage of rapid growth, which is expected to become a new important source of growth for the long-term video platform.
In the future, domestic head-to-head video platforms may continue to increase prices. The core is to improve the quality of content to obtain higher payment rates and enhance users' willingness to pay.