Jay Chou’s singles generated more than 23 million revenues, injecting a strong heart into the digital music market, but his success is difficult to replicate.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Fueling Finance” (ID: rancaijing ), author Zhao Lei, Edit Wei Jia.
Overnight, the “man” once again stood in the middle of the public opinion field.
After more than 500 days, Jay Chou finally released his latest single, “Say Good, Don’t Cry,” and fans who have waited for too long can’t suppress their excitement, buy it with their left hand, forward their right hand, and engage in the collapse of Tencent. At the same time as the server and the screen, the powerful purchasing power once again confirmed the influence of the Chinese music music “top stream”.
As of press time, “To say good or not crying” has exceeded 7.68 million total sales on QQ Music, Cool Dog, Cool Music, and generated over $23 million in revenue, and won the “Golden Diamond Record” level certification. The digital single with the highest historical sales of QQ Music Platform is also the first single digital song of the QQ Music Platform.
Affected by this positive, Tencent Music’s share price rebounded, and the US East time closed at $14.09 on the 17th, rising for two consecutive days.
The sensation is expected, the heat is unprecedented, QQ music hot search first, knowing that the hot list index is over 100 million, microblogging hot search at one time on a dozen, a lot of friends circle the screen, there are fans listening to the night For dozens of times, all the new media Xiaobian keeps up with the hotspots, those who are no longer young are risking hair loss, write their own stories in the comment area, and say “Say no cry”, let too many people shed Touched or sad tears.
Jay Chou is a youthful memory of a generation, and it is also a symbol of timelessness in this era of lack of superstars. The public’s discussion of its new song has already surpassed the song itself, from whether Jay Chou or Jiang Lang has reached the future geometry of the Chinese music scene, and then Jay-style IP and its commercial monetization model, this “explosion” can be interpreted from multiple dimensions.
The most intuitive thing is that this new song broke the sales record and brought a milk tea brand to the domestic netizens to meet two Japanese young actors. Out of the MV that is repeatedly researching the detailsAlmost all of the current elements have an opportunity to enhance their business value, not to mention the deep-bound Jewell music and Tencent music.
Interspersed in the middle of simple lyrics is a well-organized business, every second of the new song is the sound of real money.
It can be said that Jay Chou is the unique weapon of Tencent Music, and in addition to boosting the stock price of Tencent Music, the success of “Say Good and Not Cry” has also given a strong shot to the digital music market.
The paid music market is very large and there are many potential users. However, there are occasional and discontinuous explosions of music, and Jay Chou’s success cannot be replicated.
01 “Only 3 dollars, give me 500 pieces”
Old Yang has long known from the fans that Jay Chou wants to make new songs. He almost forgot when Jay Chou last sang, it seems that it has been a long time, and it seems that it didn’t take long, he thought it It is a kind of mental illusion that arises from long-term waiting, because he listens to the song of Jay Chou every day, although he expects the new song, but it is not urgent. When I learned that the pricing of the new single was 3 yuan, Lao Yang, who had a stable job at the end of the year, decided to buy 500 pieces to support Jay.
“Look at the frequency of this song, listen to one less song, no economic strength when you are young, buy more now.”
Old Yang does not regret the more than a thousand dollars. He made a slogan in the fan group. “It only costs 3 yuan and gives me 500 pieces.” But on the evening of September 17, he was in QQ music. The album purchase page was too tired, only a little more than one hundred, and then safely placed an order, completed a Buddha’s old powder support for Jay Chou.
Source / “Say no cry” MV
Old Yang is fortunate. Shortly after he placed the order, a large number of users poured into the “Say Not Cry” paid page, which caused Tencent Music’s server to briefly take a chance. Many people in the group complained that they could not complete the purchase. Such a grand occasion, Lao Yang has never seen, he made an analogy, this is like a video store in the entire small county 15 years ago, the day when Jay Chou’s new album arrived, half of the school people ran to buy. There are no places to stay, and it is impossible to get in late.
“Few singers have such a charisma.”
What Lao Yang doesn’t know is that in addition to Jay Chou, Li Yuchun, Cai Xukun and other singers have once broken the sales record of digital music albums.
In 2017, Li Yuchun’s digital album “Popular” released 1.2 million sales in two months, and sales exceeded 24 million yuan, breaking the fastest time.A record of diamond record, double diamond record, and temple diamond record certification.
Cai Xukun’s new EP “YOUNG” released in July this year took only 1 minute and 21 seconds to get 9 levels of certification from “Golden Record” to “Golden Diamonds”, breaking QQ music “Dual Diamond Record” And the “Golden Diamond Record” two platform records, Cai Xukun also became the fastest singer to break through these two levels of certification.
Buy albums, such a consumer behavior in the era of the record, gradually reborn in the era of mobile Internet, becoming an important part of the online music payment model.
For many fans, buying an album has a special sense of ritual. On Weibo and Zhihu, many people share the story of buying Jay Chou’s first album. Today, they can still recall some of the years. Details, a tape that doesn’t know genuine or pirated, a worn-out Walkman, is the first encounter with Jay Chou after 80.
Old Yang’s first album was the famous Ye Huimei, for which he spent two months of pocket money, and now the price of a digital single is only one ten thousandth of his monthly income. In addition to the feelings of increasing time, there is also the ability to pay for feelings. In contrast, buying an album online has a lot less ritual, but it is more convenient and more affordable.
This time, “Say Good and Don’t Cry” has sold 20 million hours on the line and reached more than 20 million in one day. This makes people feel the great potential of the digital music distribution market while expressing Jay Chou’s commercial appeal.
02 Internal game of the platform
In the mid-1990s, digital music in China took shape with the development of the Internet and officially entered the mobile era after 2010. Its truly large-scale commercial development has been driven by factors such as policy, environment and capital in recent years.
The report shows that the scale of China’s digital music market was 7.63 billion yuan in 2018, and the overall growth trend was high. Especially before and after 2015, under the strong emphasis of the policy on music copyright, there was a growth rate of 113.2%. In terms of composition, the revenue of China’s digital music platform mainly comes from user payment, advertising revenue, and copyright operating income.
Source / iResearch
In the digital music industry chain, it is divided into music creators, recording parties, copyright parties, distributors, and finally reaches users. Around 2015, it attracted a lot of head Internet companies.
Source / iResearch
The transition from physical record sales to digital record sales is not just a formal form conversion, but a change in the market environment, user perception and consumption habits, and it takes a long and arduous process.
Tencent Music’s 2019 Q2 financial report shows that its online music (QQ music, cool dog music, cool music) has a mobile MAU of 652 million, but the number of paid users is only 31 million, and the payment rate is only 4.7%. 1.56 billion yuan, accounting for 26.44% of the total revenue during the period, of which revenue from music subscription services was 798 million yuan, from revenue of digital album sales, copyright transfer and advertising was 762 million yuan.
Tencent Music attributed 2019Q2’s revenue growth to revenue growth for music subscriptions and the sale of digital music albums, but was offset by a decline in revenue from other music platforms, in terms of growth rate, subscription services Slightly better than digital music album sales.
The rapid growth of paid music revenues is due to the increasing level of legalization, which makes up for the natural disadvantages of music platforms that have been realized by advertising before the legalization, but online music is still limited by the lower payment rate, and users pay. There is still a lot of room for improvement in awareness, and it is necessary to stimulate the payment needs of different user groups through specific operational means.
Payment is a trend, but paid subscriptions and digital album sales have become a pair of “love each other” CP, complementing each other and competing with each other, I don’t know who can laugh at the end.
After the release of “Say Good, Not Cry”, although it was sought after by Iron Powder, some people said that they did not understand it. They have already opened QQ music green diamonds and paid music packages, and how to purchase songs separately. Even if the price of 3 yuan is not high, it is unacceptable to many passers-by.
Payment subscription revenue is affected by user size, billing rate, and ARPPU (average revenue per paying user), where user size and ARPPU have significant ceilings, and the billing rate needs to be cultivated over the long term, so for the platform, keep paid subscription revenue Growth is a challenge. However, with the increase in user awareness and the differentiated operation of platform content, there will be a large single purchase demand for top music resources such as Jay Chou, which will generate high revenue in the short term, just like this time. “Say not to cry.”
The paradox is that if there is too much content to be paid separately, it will also hurt the willingness to pay for monthly subscriptions. This is a balance beam that requires the platform to carefully look for the balance of interest maximization, specific to the situation.