This kind of fish is fierce and aggressive, and when two males meet, it will be a battle. "Founder and CEO Chen Shaojie once publicly explained the origin of the name" Douyu "on the live streaming platform.
And it is precisely this seemingly sinister live streaming platform that, in its early years, fiercely seized the market, but its future development is overshadowed. Recently, Chen Shaojie, founder and CEO of the live streaming platform Douyu, was exposed to have lost contact. At the same time, Douyu also faces many difficulties such as declining performance and continuous negative news.
CEO exposed as disconnected
On November 6th, the news of "Douyu Confirming CEO Chen Shaojie Lost Connection" topped the hot search. According to media reports, multiple sources have revealed that Douyu founder and CEO Chen Shaojie has recently lost contact. Previously, there were rumors in the market that he had been investigated and lost contact for nearly three weeks. And his latest active appearance in the public eye was attending the company's second quarter financial report analysis conference call in August this year.
On November 7th, as of press release, the Douyu official did not publicly respond to this matter.
The capital market took the lead in responding to this, and Douyu's stock price hit a historic low. On November 6th local time, Douyu fell as low as 13.35% in intraday trading, hitting $0.811 at one point. As of the close of the day, Douyu's stock price fell 10.04% to $0.842. As early as early 2021, its stock price reached a peak of $20.54 per share, but has now dropped by 90%, fluctuating in single digits.
If Chen Shaojie loses contact and cannot perform his duties normally, the company's governance and operations will be seriously affected, which may lead to a decline in stock prices. If the company cannot disclose relevant information truthfully, accurately, completely, and in a timely manner, it may cause investors to suffer investment losses, "said Zhang Xiaoliang, a lawyer at Beijing Tianda Gonghe (Chengdu) Law Firm.
Shen Meng, a director of Xiangsong Capital, said in an interview with Financial Investment News: "The CEO is not only the first person responsible for the daily operation of a company, but also participates in the formulation of medium to long-term development strategies. Therefore, CEO disconnection in the short term will affect the efficiency and quality of daily business decisions, and also affect the execution of medium to long-term development plans
The rising and falling fighting fish
Enterprise investigation shows that Douyu is affiliated with Wuhan Douyu Network Technology Co., Ltd. and is a bullet screen live streaming sharing website. At present, Douyu mainly focuses on game live streaming, covering various live content such as sports, variety shows, entertainment, etc. In addition, Chen Shaojie holds 50.2271% of the shares in Wuhan Douyu Network Technology Co., Ltd., making him the largest shareholder.
It is worth mentioning that Douyu was listed on NASDAQ in July 2019, with a market value of nearly $4 billion on that day, making it a shining moment. At that time, Chen Shaojie ranked 1507th on the 2019 Hurun Rich List with a personal wealth of 2.5 billion yuan.
Of course, the rapid rise of Douyu is inseparable from the support of capital.
A reporter from the Financial Investment News learned from the Enterprise Inspection Platform that since 2014, Douyu has gone through seven rounds of financing. At the beginning of its establishment, it was highly favored by Aofei Entertainment and received its first angel round investment of 20 million yuan. Afterwards, Tencent Investment led Douyu multiple times and even made a big move in the E-round financing on March 8, 2018, with a financing amount of $630 million, enviing others.
According to enterprise investigation
But soon, its internal ecology began to suffer problems, and suspected violations were repeatedly prohibited. Douyu has been repeatedly interviewed and supervised by departments such as the National Cyberspace Administration and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television for rectification, requiring it to clean up harmful information such as vulgar and pornographic content, and to stop updating main channel content and suspend new user registration.
At the same time, the performance of Douyu has also reached a low point. The financial report shows that from 2020 to 2022, Douyu's operating revenue was 9.6 billion yuan, 9.1 billion yuan, and 7.1 billion yuan, respectively, continuously declining.
Among them, live streaming and advertising businesses, as the "lifeline" of Douyu, have been severely affected. It should be noted that this indicator directly affects its profitability and development prospects. The financial report shows that from 2020 to 2022, the revenue of live streaming business decreased from 2.07 billion yuan to 1.597 billion yuan, a decrease of 23%; The advertising revenue decreased by 58% from 200 million yuan to 83.4 million yuan.
The live streaming industry will return to normal
In fact, the development and evolution of Douyu can be seen as a microcosm of the live streaming industry. From crazy expansion to returning to content, from "impulse" to "quality assurance", the ecological governance of the live streaming industry will eventually return to the right track.
According to the 2023-2028 China Live Broadcasting Industry Development Analysis and Investment Strategy Forecast Report, in recent years, major online live streaming platforms have sprung up like mushrooms. With the intensification of market competition, the differentiation between live streaming platforms is becoming smaller and the competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Data shows that the size of China's live streaming e-commerce market exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan in 2020, and it is expected that the market size will reach nearly 5 trillion yuan by 2023.
Obviously, with the strong rise of Tiktok, Kwai, Station B and other live broadcast platforms, Betta, which is perpendicular to the live broadcast of games, will face greater pressure to survive.
As an industry with extremely fierce competition, if there are frequent illegal and irregular business activities in live streaming, its growth space will be further compressed unless new bottlenecks and breakthroughs are found, "said Shen Meng.
Now that the high-speed growth period of the live streaming industry has passed, it is entering an important stage of industrial upgrading. Industry insiders have analyzed that if you want to break through in the live streaming industry, you must constantly introduce new ideas, increase technological and product innovation, provide high-quality content, and also improve risk awareness and compliance operation capabilities.
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