With the continuous growth of innovative businesses and the rich and diverse content ecosystem, Douyu has presented its answer sheet for improving quality and efficiency.
The first e-sports Olympic Games are confirmed to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2027. Despite many twists and turns, the prospects are finally clear; the afterglow brought by "Black Myth: Wukong" continues to ferment, and the emergence of this blockbuster has become a new engine for the industry's forward development...
Looking back on 2024 and looking forward to 2025, the e-sports and gaming industries have returned to the growth track, showing an obvious upward trend and containing more new possibilities. According to the data from the "2024 China E-sports Industry Report", the scale of China's e-sports market exceeded 27.5 billion yuan in 2024, and the number of game users reached 490 million.
Undoubtedly, e-sports is a huge industry and still a blue ocean. Against this background, domestic e-sports industry practitioners, especially platform companies, have risen with the trend, and the competition has become increasingly fierce. No matter what the model is, providing users with rich and high-quality content and diverse and interesting experiences is the only way to strengthen one's moat.
On March 15, Douyu released its financial results for the fourth quarter and the whole year of 2024. The revenue in the fourth quarter was 1.136 billion yuan, and the annual revenue was 4.271 billion yuan. While maintaining stable performance, Douyu made further breakthroughs in multiple dimensions such as content and commercialization.
Source: Douyu's financial report
Ren Simin, co-CEO of Douyu, said, "We optimized the company's resource allocation, enhanced the ability of revenue diversification, actively reduced inefficient investment, and concentrated resources to consolidate the platform's core game content ecosystem and the company's business fundamentals. In 2025, we will focus on improving revenue diversification and cost efficiency, optimize the cost structure of traditional businesses, rely on AI technology to drive efficiency improvement, and accelerate the commercial exploration of new businesses to improve the company's overall financial situation."
While more opportunities and challenges are emerging in the industry, Douyu is trying to find the right path.
Improve quality and efficiency, and significantly enhance commercialization ability
What is most noteworthy in this financial report is that Douyu has made significant progress in revenue diversification. Its revenue from innovative businesses, advertising, and other sources has increased significantly in a single quarter and throughout 2024. The financial report data shows that these revenues increased by 47.2% to 405 million yuan in the fourth quarter, accounting for 35.7% of the total revenue. In 2024, the annual revenue from this category increased by 63.6% year-on-year to 1.2 billion yuan. Among them, the innovative business has been growing for eight consecutive quarters.
Douyu's second growth curve is gradually taking shape. With two legs walking, the platform's development is more stable. Looking back on the past year, the main theme of Douyu's overall business has been to improve quality and efficiency, improve quality through innovative businesses, and increase efficiency by improving operational efficiency and reducing unnecessary additional expenditures. Now that the scale effect of Douyu's new business has been formed, it can be predicted that the continuous growth of the innovative business in the future will provide continuous impetus for Douyu's model transformation and long-term stable revenue growth.
Let's first review what Douyu has done to improve operational efficiency.
At the beginning of taking over as co-CEO this year, Ren Simin pointed out the focus of Douyu's development in the future. She said, "Given our current cash situation and strategic business plan, we will continue to focus on improving operational efficiency and strive to overcome the challenges of the macroeconomic and operational environment to support the company's long-term development." Eliminating long - standing problems and achieving healthy development have been placed at a very high priority.
The financial report data shows the results. Many of Douyu's costs and expenses have been effectively controlled. The cost in the fourth quarter was 1.066 billion yuan, a decrease of 8.8% compared with 1.17 billion yuan in the same period last year. In terms of expenses, Douyu's sales and marketing expenses in the fourth quarter decreased by 5.5% to 79.3 million yuan, and the management expenses were 71.7 million yuan, a year - on - year decrease of 10.4%. Streamlining management and focusing on internal strength, the data doesn't lie.
In addition to "cutting expenses", more importantly, it is necessary to "increase revenue". Now, not only Douyu, but the entire game live - streaming industry is in the stage of diversified transformation. Exploring a more sustainable revenue - increasing path is an essential part of breaking through in the increasingly fierce market competition environment. Looking back at 2024, Douyu's second growth curve has gradually matured, and the platform's commercialization ability has reached a new level.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, Douyu increased the promotion of game - related services and voice services. The financial report clearly states that the growth of revenue from innovative businesses, advertising, and other sources is due to the standardized product design, effective recruitment mechanism, and precise user targeting. The revenue from Douyu's voice - based social network services and game membership services has increased.
In addition, Douyu increased the promotion frequency of commercialization businesses mainly based on game props and explored more marketing scenarios. By combining offline content with online sales, it focused on enhancing users' consumption willingness. For example, in the Peace Elite section, marketing activities such as the Peace Fashion Week theme fair and the management manual were launched, and in the CrossFire section, the year - end good - things live - streaming festival was launched.
Douyu's prop business
The in - depth exploration and utilization of platform resources allow Douyu to be more flexible in marketing creativity. With long - term in - depth development in the game live - streaming field, the platform has a clear understanding of users' needs and preferences. Only in this way can it provide products and services that can truly touch users.
At the commercialization level, Douyu also launched tiered paid products. For core users, it continued to promote the high - benefit membership system and game - related products in the fourth quarter to increase the payment frequency; for general users, the platform promoted low - threshold small - revenue products, combined with rich game content and platform rewards to increase activity, meeting the needs of different users while maintaining the overall number of paid users.
The most taboo in user operation is being extensive. Especially nowadays, young people's preferences are becoming more and more fragmented. Only through refined management and providing different users with differentiated experiences at a finer granularity can we effectively mobilize users' enthusiasm for participation. According to the financial report data, the number of paid users on the platform in the fourth quarter of 2024 was 3.3 million.
Although Douyu made a large - scale dividend payment at the end of last year, its cash flow remained healthy and stable. According to the financial report, as of December 31, 2024, Douyu had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short - term and long - term bank deposits of 4.468 billion yuan. This also proves from the side the improvement of Douyu's commercialization ability.
Douyu's diversified content ecosystem
Undoubtedly, the competition in the game live - streaming industry is becoming increasingly fierce. The core variable comes from the short - video industry. The strong entry of emerging platforms has caused the rapid transfer of traffic to the short - video field, squeezing the living space of traditional game live - streaming platforms.
From the competition among thousands of broadcasters to the situation of two major players standing side by side, the current game live - streaming industry has entered a situation of melee among multiple "oligarchs".
But in the final analysis, a game live - streaming platform is not just a container for traffic. More importantly, it is an important bridge connecting players, streamers, and game manufacturers. By playing the role of the bridge well, the platform can have a moat.
As an "old player" with long - term in - depth development in the game live - streaming field, without the advantage in traffic, Douyu is deeply refining content supply with a more refined operation idea, creating a more high - quality, professional, and diversified community content atmosphere, and building a "diversified content ecosystem platform centered on games".
Douyu's content ecosystem is continuously evolving.
Data shows that in the fourth quarter of 2024, Douyu broadcast more than 50 official large - scale events and created nearly 40 self - produced e - sports events.
Douyu - related events
Self - produced events are an advantageous area for Douyu to demonstrate the professionalism and innovation of its content. On the one hand, Douyu launched innovative events around professional teams, specific streamers, and streamer groups. For example, the Valorant Vali Cup gathered 8 professional teams to participate. On the other hand, relying on the platform's advantage in hardcore game sections, it continued cross - platform content cooperation. The Honor of Kings Legion Cup and Thunder Glory Cup S2, as a new IP upgrade of the Thunder Glory Cup, further activated the section's activity and effectively continued the e - sports ecosystem's popularity during the official off - season.
At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, Douyu continued to make in - depth layouts at the level of self - produced events. The Honor of Kings Zhenniu Cup held at the beginning of the year was undoubtedly the focus event at the end of the lunar year. Douyu continued to consolidate its dominant position in the field of Honor of Kings.
In addition, Douyu also expanded the ecosystem of long - tail games by holding the Brawl Stars Cup. The event has a low threshold, combining competitive attributes and entertainment, and is an effective entry point to attract non - core players.
It can be seen that Douyu's layout of self - produced events covers mainstream players and general game users, achieving full coverage of diverse game categories through self - produced events. With long - term in - depth development in the e - sports and game live - streaming tracks, Douyu has sufficient resources and capabilities to activate the entire community ecosystem with rich e - sports content, combining professionalism and entertainment, and creating more popular and high - quality content for game users.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, Douyu also launched several self - produced live - streaming variety shows. "City Explorers" where streamers gathered in Chongqing to explore local cuisine; "Border Adventure Team" where they went to the border to experience local customs; and "Let's Talk! KTV Friends" where fans and water friends participated together. A series of cross - section diversified content was created around streamers.
For contemporary young people, in any type of content community, professionalism is the foundation, but entertainment is also indispensable. Creating diversified content around streamers can not only enhance the connection between streamers and users but also stimulate users' greater enthusiasm for interaction, thereby improving the platform's user stickiness.
With a multi - level and rich content matrix, Douyu has more touchpoints and means in marketing. For example, during the anniversary of Honor of Kings, exclusive voice packs and game props for top streamers were launched; during the 18th anniversary of Happy DouDiZhu, Douyu launched the Happy Kung Fu Live - streaming Week. Douyu continues to create more customized game services for game products at different stages and with different needs, and provides more abundant content experiences for platform users.
Image source: Internet
It is not difficult to see that Douyu is closely focusing on the connection among users, streamers, and game manufacturers, and constantly exploring the possibilities of content creation. Doing a good job in content and serving users well is the eternal foundation of a content community and the source of the upward development of its commercialization ability.
From Douyu's financial report, we can see the new ideas and new directions of an "old player" in the e - sports live - streaming field. Truly taking root in the user group and daring to innovate and break through in content are the keys to remaining invincible in the competition.