On March 26, Douyu (NASDAQ: DOYU) released its unaudited financial report for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. In the fourth quarter, Douyu continued to adhere to the core strategy of "diversified content ecological platform with games as the core", committed to the long-term healthy and sustainable development of the platform in the new development environment, and achieved a turnaround in net profit for the year.
Financial report data shows that in the fourth quarter of 2023, Douyu’s total revenue was 1.296 billion yuan, live broadcast revenue was 1.021 billion yuan, advertising and other revenue was 275 million yuan, a significant increase of 226.5% year-on-year, gross profit was 126 million yuan, and gross profit margin was 9.7% , the adjusted net loss was 5 million yuan. The average mobile MAU in this quarter was 51.7 million, which remained stable quarter-on-quarter, and the number of paying users in the quarter was 3.7 million. For the whole year of 2023, Douyu's total revenue was 5.53 billion yuan, gross profit was 684 million yuan, and adjusted net profit was 154 million yuan. The platform measures to optimize the cost structure have begun to show results, the platform's profitability efficiency has been effectively improved, and the net profit level has been successfully achieved. Turn losses into profits.
The Douyu Interim Management Committee stated in the financial report: "In 2023, Douyu will adhere to the development strategy of 'diversified content ecological platform with games as the core', continue to invest in high-quality content and efficient operation of the platform, and adopt flexible measures in a timely manner. The operational strategy responds to the challenging macro environment; including improving the revenue structure, adjusting customer acquisition strategies, strengthening compliance construction, etc., and is committed to achieving long-term growth and sustainable development of the platform."
The full-year net profit turned a profit, and advertising and other income increased significantly.
In 2023, Douyu's adjusted net profit for the year was 154 million yuan, successfully turning losses into profits. The revenue structure continues to be optimized, and the company's business model transformation has achieved remarkable results. The company's advertising and other revenue grew significantly, and its annual revenue share increased to 13.2%. In the fourth quarter, advertising and other revenue was 275 million yuan, a significant year-on-year increase of 226.5%, showing a good growth trend.
At the beginning of 2024, Douyu simplified the company's organizational structure and reorganized the company's important content ecological division into three major divisions: broadcasters, events, and manufacturers. It concentrated on integrating the core resources of the platform, actively promoted business and model innovation and transformation, and strengthened content interaction through Increased user activity. Focusing on platform anchors, Douyu continues to launch anchor-customized events and cross-region operating activities, and actively helps anchors obtain exposure opportunities from variety shows, fashion magazines and other channels; focusing on popular official e-sports events, Douyu has created a collection of derivative commentary, An e-sports content ecosystem that integrates data visualization, interactive evaluation, and offline game viewing; focusing on cooperation with manufacturers, Douyu makes full use of platform resources in new game promotion and subsequent commercial operations, providing a variety of innovative marketing methods for game products.
Against this background, Douyu makes full use of the attributes of platform games to undertake the promotion and distribution needs from game manufacturers. It has established good business cooperation relationships with Tencent, NetEase, MiHoYo and many other manufacturers to jointly explore more effective games. marketing techniques. In the traditional sales of game props, skins, and peripherals, Douyu teamed up with game manufacturers and Taobao to innovate to launch the "Game Shopping Festival" event, with 8 leading anchors including YYF, Yuan Shenlong Siye, and Luo Xin serving as Genshin Impact and Heroes. Alliance, CFM, DOTA2 and other game products are sold. The number of viewers in the live broadcast room exceeds 12 million, and the cumulative sales are nearly 10 million yuan. Douyu’s official live broadcast room has successfully topped the Taobao live broadcast real-time list, successfully exploring a new game + e-commerce model. .
The scale of paying users remains stable and the construction of content ecosystem is further strengthened.
In the past year, in the face of a complex and ever-changing macro and operating environment, Douyu took the initiative to shrink some inefficient businesses and continued to increase its ecological construction. After the popular summer season in the third quarter, it still maintained a stable user base quarter-on-quarter. The average MAU on mobile devices in the fourth quarter was to 51.7 million. Douyu adheres to the strategy of driving growth with high-quality content, which has also attracted some new users and return.
In the fourth quarter, Douyu selected popular e-sports events, and its strong reserve of official event resources and self-made event production capabilities built a "pyramid"-shaped event layout to meet the viewing needs of users at all levels. This quarter, Douyu broadcast more than 30 official large-scale events, including the League of Legends S13 Global Finals, Dota2 Ti12 International Invitational Tournament, Honor of Kings Challenger Cup and Championship, CrossFire China Qualifiers and World Championship, and the Fearless Contract Evolution Series tournament, International Invitational Tournament, Ten Global Invitational Tournament, etc. Douyu has more than 60 self-made events, including the KPL Youth Training Tournament based on KPL official events, the S10 Teamfight Tactics Goddess Invitational Tournament organized around female anchors, and the continuously held Genshin Impact Yuyu Cup Abyss BP Tournament, etc. Douyu Electronics The advantage of competitive resource moat is still obvious.
To support the official competitions, Douyu has also created derivative commentary and commentary programs involving professional anchors and professional players, a professional data board in the League of Legends S competition live broadcast room that helps senior players quickly understand the strength of players and teams, and in the LPL summer competition " The new "Player Rating" link based on the "MVP/Back List" voting, as well as League of Legends' "S13 offline viewing" and many other contents not only provide players with a comprehensive e-sports content experience, but also greatly improve It improves the fun of watching the game and the atmosphere of the game.
In addition to competitions, Douyu has a large number of professional game anchors with various styles, and its contracted teams cover major e-sports projects such as League of Legends, DOTA2, Peace Elite, Cross Fire, etc., including many champion teams. It is worth mentioning that in the 2023 Asian Games, Douyu signed team players in the Honor of Kings and Peace Elite projects to be selected for the national team, and successfully won gold medals on the international stage. Focusing on professional anchor resources, Douyu created the Gemini Lucky Cup, the first and only anchor IP professional event of Honor of Kings, the Douyu Kemen Invitational Tournament headed by YYF, and also launched "Uncle Ge's Baby Bus", "Youjian Farm", etc. Variety show content involving anchors, celebrities, and teams, and platform resources are actively invested to help increase the influence of anchors. As a result, top anchors and related high-quality content further improve the user stickiness of the platform.
At the level of new and old game promotion and operation, Douyu helps manufacturers match a variety of game marketing activities in various stages such as the testing period, reservation period, promotion period, and version update period. For the key new game "Yuanmeng Star" in the fourth quarter, Douyu launched a million-dollar bonus for launch incentives and Yuanmeng Star Season anchor trial to fully mobilize the influence of cross-region anchors and user activity. The number of game launches during the public beta period and The broadcast time is industry-leading, driving product and community popularity to continue to grow. Looking at the whole year, during the anniversary of "Danzi Party", Douyu integrated platform anchor resources and PGC production capabilities to launch the national competitive live broadcast variety show "Danzi Rushing Forward", with as many as 9.14 million viewers in the official live broadcast room. During the public beta period of "Nishuihan Mobile Game", Douyu's head anchor team launched the "share a million red envelopes" game promotion, forming a multi-channel promotion matrix covering live broadcast rooms, fish bars, off-site social media and other channels. The zones are also equipped with live broadcasts, videos, A one-stop content service that can efficiently boost the popularity of new games online in a short period of time.
In the fourth quarter, the Douyu APP revision also optimized content presentation, strengthened the interactive function between anchors and users, and added a new "dynamics" first-level column, which displays information such as the anchor's broadcast status and live broadcast room entrance; as well as the anchor's dynamics and Fish Bar and other non-live broadcast content, so that users can understand the anchor's updates and comment when the anchor is not live broadcasting, and interact with more users who follow the anchor through the anchor's Fish Bar, which improves social attributes from the basic logic level of the product and optimizes the platform Interactive community ecology.
Launched a number of special Qingliang actions to ensure the healthy and sustainable development of the platform
In the fourth quarter, Douyu continued to strengthen self-examination and standardized management in compliance, and continuously improved compliance standards at the product, operation, and audit levels. Based on the original compliance system, the platform interim management committee has made every effort to build a new compliance system of "four-in-one" (business compliance, content compliance, process compliance and data compliance), and comprehensively implement the project risk prevention and control system , establish a product traceability mechanism, improve the interactive anti-addiction system, pay attention to the handling of disputes and complaints, regularly investigate the platform's violation risks and rectify violations, and strengthen risk awareness education for relevant company personnel.
In the future, Douyu will combine its three core advantages of deep anchor resources, rich content ecology and close cooperation with game manufacturers to further improve the platform's game community ecology through product innovation and content upgrades, while strengthening platform compliance and improving user experience. Experience while enhancing the company's commercialization capabilities and consolidating Douyu's comprehensive competitiveness and leading position in the domestic game content industry under the ever-changing market environment.