Find the rhythm and strike again.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “Xiaguangshe” (ID: Globalinsights), author: Zhang Qiang, editor: Shen Shi.
Kaishou handed in a new transcript.
On May 24, Kuaishou Technology (1024.HK) released its first quarter 2021 financial report. According to the latest financial report, as of March 31, 2021, the average daily active users of Kuaishou China’s apps and mini programs reached 379.2 million, a year-on-year increase of 26.4%.
The average daily active users and average monthly active users of the Kuaishou app reached 295.3 million and 519.8 million respectively. The average daily usage time of each daily active user was 99.3 minutes, a year-on-year increase of 16.5%.
In terms of revenue, the total revenue of Kuaishou in the first quarter was 17 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.6%. Among them, Kuaishou’s online marketing service revenue in this quarter increased by 161.5% year-on-year to 8.6 billion yuan, contributing more than 50% of total revenue.
This means that Kuaishou has shown continued growth in key user acquisition and commercialization. In addition, thanks to the optimization of the revenue structure, its gross profit margin has increased from 34.2% in the same period last year to 41.1% today.
In addition to these core data that has received much attention, it is even more noteworthy that Kuaishou disclosed the progress of overseas business for the first time in the financial report: the leading short video products Kwai, SnackVideo, etc. have achieved certain success in South America and Southeast Asia. breakthrough.
The average monthly active users in the Kuaishou overseas market exceeded 100 million in the first quarter, and this number further increased to more than 150 million in April this year.
For some time in the past, in the context of complex international relations, Kuaishou has been firmly advancing its overseas strategy, and the release of the latest financial report has also released a clear signal to the outside world-internationalization is one of its strategic priorities, and it is still Keep increasing.
01 Kuaishou’s “eagerness” for going out to sea
For Kuaishou, going to sea is not a new story.
In 2017, when Douyin sounded the clarion call to enter overseas, Kuaishou had already formed an overseas team and officially operated the overseas version of Kuaishou, Kwai.
At that time, Kwai chose Russia, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions as the breakthrough point for its internationalization strategy. In South Korea, Kwai attracted many “old irons” for a while with the demonstration effects of stars such as Lin Yoona and Suzy.Into.
With the full entertainment and the “star effect”, Kwai is in the limelight. Within a month, the app has been downloaded 10 million in South Korea, and it has topped the list of video editing apps for many consecutive days. Download rankings.
In Russia, Southeast Asia and other markets, there are also good news. In the second quarter of 2017, Kwai ranked second in the Russian market APP growth list, an increase of nearly 58%; in the first half of 2018, Kwai successively won the first place in the download list of Google Play and App Store in Russia and seven countries in Southeast Asia.
But ups and downs followed, because the domestic natural growth strategy did not work overseas, and the aggressive launch strategy was stopped. In 2019, Kwai’s overseas downloads declined, and the retention situation was not ideal. In August of that year, the media broke the news that Kuaishou’s overseas team had shrunk significantly.
At the time of turbulent wind and rain, Kuaishou clearly responded that overseas business is the focus of company-level strategy and “will go on with great determination.”
Especially in 2019, after Kuaishou launched the “K3 Campaign” (sprinting 300 million DAU), the importance of acquiring new volume overseas has become more prominent:
After the former head of international business left, Cheng Yixiao, the founder and chief product officer of Kuaishou, personally acted as the head of Kwai’s overseas business, and re-recruited overseas technical, product, design, review and other personnel, and reorganized the overseas team ; And in Silicon Valley, Seattle and San Diego, Kuaishou specially set up R&D teams to provide support for overseas business expansion.
This year, as the overseas business of Kuaishou is back on track, Kwai’s daily activity in Brazil, a key expansion area, exceeds 8 million.
But compared with TikTok, which swept overseas at this time, this result has been slightly weak. According to the list of the world’s most downloaded social media applications in January 2020 released by Sensor Tower, TikTok ranked first in total downloads, and Kwai ranked eighth.
Of course, Kuaishou is not willing to be left behind. Since 2020, Kuaishou has moved more frequently overseas.
02 Trader
In 2020, SnackVideo, a short video product launched by Kuaishou in 2019, suddenly launched its efforts in the Middle East, India and other markets.
App AAccording to nnie data, since July last year, SnackVideo’s ranking on the Google Play download list in India has risen from 200, reaching the top in mid-July. According to Sensor Tower’s July “Top 10 Most Popular Mobile App Downloads in the World” list, SnackVideo’s short video products entered the list for the first time, soaring to number 8.
Subsequently, SnackVideo quickly launched the iOS version. In just a dozen days, the iOS version of SnackVideo has rushed into the top 3 social download lists in the Indian App Store and the top 20 social download lists in the Indonesian App Store.
Behind such a intensive offensive is Kuaishou’s determination to promote internationalization. For this reason, since last year, Kuaishou is trying to introduce more experienced traders to increase the amount of overseas business. Previously, in the discussion about “Why the Kuaishou’s road to sea so twists and turns”, in addition to the mismatch of strategies, Some people think that the problem also includes the “ungroundedness” of the Kuaishou overseas team.
However, this situation is changing.
According to media reports, at the end of 2020, the former Didi COO in charge of international business Qiu Guangyu officially joined Kuaishou as the head of Kuaishou’s international business, responsible for Kuaishou’s overseas business (including KT, X6, XYZ) and overseas Chinese and Taiwan.
According to public information, Qiu Guangyu joined Didi in 2015 and was responsible for investment and financing, special vehicles, and internationalization within five years. In August 2019, he was promoted to COO of the International Business Department. In the past few years, Qiu Guangyu and his Didi International Business Unit have performed outstandingly.
In November 2020, Liu Qing, President of Didi Travel, announced that Didi’s market share in major Latin American markets is close to 50%. According to media evaluation, for Qiu Guangyu, the main task now is to copy these successful experiences to Kuaishou.
In April of this year, another technical expert joined the Kuaishou overseas team. According to media reports, Wang Meihong, the former Facebook Chinese engineering executive, has taken the post of chief technical officer of Kuaishou Overseas.
Previously, during his tenure at Facebook, Wang Meihong once built a News Feed product that changed the profit model of European and American news distribution and social media, and was responsible for Facebook’s news information flow and recommendation system platform Symphony. At the same time, he built a new product from scratch. Short video products.
PastThese experiences have led some voices to believe that Wang Meihong can bring new changes to multiple dimensions such as the profit model of Kuaishou overseas products and the algorithm recommendation mechanism.
After fully complementing the “people” sector, Kuaishou is accelerating its overseas business, which also means that a new war has begun in the highly competitive overseas short video market.
03 New War Events
The situation of peaking domestic traffic is already in front of us. According to the “Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development Status” by the China Internet Network Information Center, as of the end of 2020, the number of short video users in China was 873 million, an increase of 100 million from March 2020, accounting for 88.3% of the total Internet users.
If you want to achieve greater growth, you can only look overseas. Although there have been turmoil-at the end of 2020, in the turmoil of India’s ban on Chinese applications, Kuaishou was also affected. At that time, the short video product SnackVideo, which had 150 million monthly active users in India, was forced to be removed from the shelves.
The storm of uncertainty may still hit. But it is foreseeable that Kuaishou’s actions overseas will not stop.
In the conference call after the release of the fourth quarter and full-year performance report of 2020, Su Hua said, “This year the company will selectively reserve and deploy overseas business, and it will also strengthen the local market for overseas business in the future. To increase investment in content and cooperation.”
For Kuaishou, “Overseas business is still in the early stage of development. But through such attempts, Kuaishou is excited to see the potential for its own business model and ecology to thrive outside the local area.”
And Kuaishou has also figured out a differentiated attack route: around South America, Southeast Asia and other markets, a key breakthrough has been made.
According to App Annie data, SnackVideo currently ranks among the top ten Google Play rankings in Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries; Kwai has broken into the top ten iOS rankings in 21 countries including Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico.
Just recently, according to foreign media reports, Kwai also sponsored the “Copa America” football match to be held in Colombia and Argentina. This is one of the most important sports events in South America, and as the first sponsor of the “Copa America” “Kwai, a short video social platform, may usher in a wave of growth.
The Kuaishou sailing again is brewing a new round of overseas attacks.
Today’s interactive topic
The battle of Kuaishou has started again. Where is the new story?