With a significant increase in gross profit and a narrowing loss, Douyu has become a company better at business operations.

After more than two years of business streamlining, adjustment, and repositioning, Douyu has presented its "new answer sheet" for cost reduction and efficiency improvement. The company's operational and profitability have been significantly enhanced.

On May 20th, Douyu released its financial report for the first quarter of 2025. This report can be regarded as a milestone presentation of Douyu's operational achievements.

According to Douyu's financial report, the total revenue in the first quarter of 2025 was 947 million yuan. Among them, the revenue from innovative business, advertising, and other sources was 383 million yuan, a year - on - year increase of 60.2%. The gross profit was 114 million yuan, with a year - on - year increase of 4.1% and a quarter - on - quarter increase of 62.6%. The gross profit margin reached 12%, a year - on - year increase of 1.5% and a quarter - on - quarter increase of 5.9%. The operating loss was 26.1 million yuan, a significant year - on - year decrease of 84.3%. The adjusted net loss was 20.9 million yuan, narrowing by 75.6% year - on - year.

Several core indicators related to operational capabilities have all increased to varying degrees, indicating that Douyu is on the right track of healthy and sustainable development.

At the earnings conference call, Ren Simin, the co - CEO of Douyu, said, "We focus on enhancing revenue diversification capabilities and improving cost efficiency. In this quarter, the company's gross profit margin has improved year - on - year, and the operating loss has significantly narrowed. By strengthening commercial cooperation with game manufacturers and optimizing the operation and promotion of the voice business, the company's innovative business has maintained a good growth momentum. We also dynamically allocate anchor resources to balance content supply."

In recent years, under the guidance of its core operational goals, Douyu has persisted in its actions without deviation and continued to go deeper. The current financial report is the best proof.

01

Diversified Revenue Growth and Proper Cost Control

Diversified business is the key to Douyu's business transformation, the main battlefield leading its upward development, and also the way to achieve high - quality cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

In the first quarter of 2025, the revenue from Douyu's innovative business, advertising, and other sources reached 383 million yuan, accounting for more than 40% of the total revenue. Undoubtedly, Douyu's second growth curve can now stand on its own. Among them, the most eye - catching is the voice social business independently launched by Douyu, with a revenue of 290.1 million yuan in the first quarter.

The voice social business is highly favored by users. The average monthly active users of this business are 498,400, and the average monthly paying users are 82,900. During the Spring Festival, the business carried out a series of targeted marketing activities and was supplemented with an efficient traffic distribution strategy, which improved user participation and payment conversion rates.

We can see that Douyu's platform operation ideas are clearer, and its business actions are more precise.

According to Douyu's financial report data, the average mobile MAU (Monthly Active Users) in the first quarter was 41.4 million, the average paying users were 2.9 million, and the ARPPU was 216 yuan. Among them, the number of average active users decreased by 8.7% year - on - year. The main reasons for the decline were the reduction of official event broadcasts and the decrease of related derivative content on the platform.

However, this is also the result of Douyu's active adjustment and a side of its refined operation. In the first quarter, Douyu continued its operation strategy of optimizing copyright purchases and the anchor salary system. It made choices in event copyrights and reduced extensive management in anchor management. Generally, it was a strategy of making concessions to gain an advantage. Such a decision was actually to achieve more efficient allocation and utilization of resources.

Under the general idea of cost reduction and efficiency improvement, Douyu adopted a prudent financial strategy of efficient cost control, which was reflected in the financial report data as follows: In the first quarter of 2025, the sales and marketing expenses were 72.9 million yuan, a 3.5% decrease compared with 75.6 million yuan in the same period of 2024; the R & D expenses were 32.7 million yuan, a 39.5% decrease compared with 54.2 million yuan in the same period of last year; the management expenses were 35.8 million yuan, a 16.4% year - on - year decrease.

Only when the tide goes out can we see who is swimming naked. When the game live - streaming industry enters the second half, Douyu, the "first stock in the game live - streaming industry", has started the "anti - fragility" battle after difficultly going through the cycle.

As we all know, the game live - streaming industry has long ended the extensive development stage of wild growth and entered the stage of rational reshuffle. The industry has entered the elimination round, and players in it are bound to experience pain, especially the "old players". Facing the new market competition environment, Douyu's transformation is not just a simple business consideration but also related to survival, and its necessity is no less than a genetic recombination operation.

Therefore, we can see that Douyu bravely broke its path dependence in business. Transformation is painful, especially for a benchmark platform in the industry. However, the transformation has to start. As Douyu's second growth curve gradually matures and becomes the driving force for its business, we can once again see Douyu's future prospects from the numbers.

02

Optimize and Strengthen Content Structure, Improve Experience + Continuously Reduce Costs

As early as 2022, Douyu started the path of cost reduction and efficiency improvement by "adjusting the copyright strategy" and "increasing investment in self - produced content" simultaneously. To date, we can see that Douyu's content matrix has become more perfect. While further improving users' content experience, it has also gradually achieved its corporate development goal of cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

The essence of cost reduction and efficiency improvement is to optimize resource allocation. For a content community, nothing is more important than providing high - quality content and interactive services. Douyu's content capabilities continue to iterate and evolve, and the content supply is becoming more abundant.

E - sports has always been the foundation of game live - streaming platforms. Although Douyu has made adjustments in copyright operation, its moat is still deep. The e - sports content that combines professionalism and viewability has always been the deepest bond between Douyu and its users.

In this quarter, Douyu broadcast nearly 40 official large - scale events, including the Spring Season of King of Glory KPL, the Spring Season of CrossFire CFPL, and the Valorant Masters Bangkok. It also produced more than 20 self - made e - sports events and launched 10 entertainment programs, mainly including the anchor - sponsored and brand - co - operated events of Dota2, the League of Legends Time Cup S2, and the Peacekeeper Elite PGC program launched in combination with game membership activities and official event sponsorship.

Among them, the League of Legends Time Cup S2 invited top technical anchors and veteran popular players of League of Legends across the network. By combining competitiveness and entertainment through innovative competition systems and rich interactive content, the event also introduced special competition systems such as "Player - snatching Cards", "Coach is Warming Up", and "Time Cup Trading Week", further enriching the viewability of the game. During the Time Cup, the viewing time increased by 134%, and the daily average event return also increased significantly by 255%. As a popular core section of Douyu, the League of Legends section has continuously updated its event content and deeply integrated the platform's powerful anchor resources, so the vitality of the section has been significantly improved.

Douyu still maintains a strong position in self - produced content. By linking industry resources to maximize content advantages, it effectively improves cost efficiency, such as the E - Cup of League of Legends: Wild Rift and the Reborn in the Canyon Cup of King of Glory. Among them, the Delta Force Bounty Cup pioneered the Delta Bounty Tournament mode, and the prize money increased gradually as the competition progressed. The event gathered 24 first - line teams, expanding and enriching the diversified matrix of shooting game event content on the platform and constantly refreshing the viewing experience that meets the preferences of core game users.

In terms of marketing methods, through close cooperation with mainstream game manufacturers, Douyu has launched customized prop sales services, providing an immersive game consumption experience for core game users and enhancing users' purchase intention.

In January this year, Douyu continued to cooperate with Peacekeeper Elite to launch the Peace Store and started the preliminary prop voting activity. Players could vote in the game and Douyu's live - streaming rooms successively to finally determine the types of props on the store shelves. By deeply binding with the game, the Peace Store transformed game prop sales into player interaction, better meeting players' consumption needs and enhancing the sense of participation in the event.

In addition, in the first quarter of 2025, Douyu actively promoted the in - depth integration of platform resources, comprehensively coordinated the resources of all sections of the whole station, gave full play to its professional capabilities in anchor resource reserves and content production fields, and carefully planned and launched a series of high - quality PGC programs. Douyu also used the platform's PGC programs as a carrier to explore prop sales. In "Douyu Peacekeeper Elite Adventure Journey", cross - section anchors were invited to Changbai Mountain to carry out "outdoor entertainment + game live - streaming", and the new UV (Unique Visitors) of the section reached twice that of non - event days.

These actions indicate that Douyu is optimizing the business model of game live - streaming to make it closer to market and user needs, and ensuring the long - term healthy development of the platform through diversified operation strategies.

The exploration of the commercialization path of the content community is never a castle in the air. It always needs to stand from the users' perspective and provide users with better and more interesting service experiences. After a series of adjustments to the operation strategies, Douyu has returned to the healthy positive cycle of "improving content services" - "increasing users" - "increasing revenue".

The game live - streaming industry is still at an inflection point. As an industry veteran, Douyu has experienced glory that others have never had. After going through the cycle, it can still stand at the top.