Picture source @Visual China
text | Bohu Finance, author | Mengde
WeChat has new actions.
Tech Planet exclusively learned that in order to optimize users’ music listening and audio experience, WeChat has conducted a small-scale experience optimization test on the way music content is presented. The music and audio services that were previously located in the drop-down page of the home page have a separate entrance in the "Discover" page and are renamed "Listen", which is in line with "Search", "Scan" and "Look" "Look" and other functions are juxtaposed, and the weight has been improved.
"Listen" is not a new feature. As early as April last year, WeChat and QQ Music launched a limited-time event. During the event, users can listen to the full version of VIP songs for free on WeChat, including the popular Jay Chou full album. Later, WeChat added an audio function to the music function, so that public account articles, video accounts and other content in WeChat can be used as audio for users.
Even at the WeChat 10th Anniversary Open Course Pro in 2021, Zhang Xiaolong, senior vice president of Tencent and president of the WeChat Business Group, emphasized that WeChat is still a small and beautiful product, but the outside world's perception of WeChat is obviously different.
Musk once praised WeChat in a public chat in June 2022, saying that in China you basically live on WeChat because it is very convenient, and tried to draw inspiration from WeChat to complete the transformation of Twitter.
However, whether it is online music or audio entertainment, "good brother" Tencent Music is already a giant in the industry. Why does WeChat extend its tentacles to the sound economy?
01 is both forced and proactive.
first of all comes to the conclusion, because it is worth it in the audio entertainment market.
According to data from the "2023 Tencent Entertainment White Paper·Music", the scale of China's digital music market will increase year by year from 2021 to 2023, reaching 133.18 billion yuan, 155.490 billion yuan and 184.925 billion yuan respectively. The three-year continuous growth data shows that listeners are more willing to Spend money on online music.
In terms of audio, although the audio consumption market has formed in the hundreds of millions, the growth rate of user scale has slowed down marginally. According to the iResearch Consumer Research Institute, the scale of audio users will remain relatively stable after exceeding 350 million in 2026.
But audio users have very "characteristics":
According to a survey by iResearch Consumer Research Institute, the mainstream users of domestic online audio are young and middle-aged white-collar workers living in first- and second-tier cities. Most of them are women, and their overall education and income levels are relatively high. Fast pace and less free time.
At the same time, due to their strong willingness to consume and high requirements for quality of life, users generally have a positive attitude towards paying for audio content and do not hesitate to maintain and increase related investments in high-quality content that meets personalized needs. According to the survey results and with reference to the corresponding consumption data of cultural, educational and entertainment services, the consumption awareness of domestic audio users has greatly improved. We can look forward to whether the commercialization level of the domestic podcast market can be improved.
uses social networking to revitalize the traffic and activity of music and audio entertainment users, making the traffic pool more valuable, thereby attracting more content creators, producing more popular music works, and increasing users Sticky podcasts, audio productions, and more. At the same time, higher activity, richer content, and more valuable traffic will empower Tencent’s “future hope”—WeChat video account.
But what is equally important is that under Douyin’s unreasonable play style, Tencent needs WeChat to enter the game.
Although Tencent Music is already the dominant player in the music industry and basically monopolizes copyrights, like NetEase Cloud Music, Kugou Music and other platforms, most users only use it as a music player tool. Tool software can also be easily replaced. Examples include Baofeng Video, Xunlei, etc. Especially when competitors continue to stalk their own territory, it is not surprising that WeChat takes action personally.
From the data point of view, Tencent Music’s users are constantly losing, which is in sharp contrast to Douyin’s growing data.
In Q3 2023, Tencent Music's financial report showed that the number of monthly active users of online music services was 594 million, a decrease of 4.2% from the same period last year.According to questmobile data, as of September 2023, Douyin has approximately 743 million monthly active users, and the average daily usage time per person has increased from 108.4 minutes in September 2022 to 115.2 minutes.
What's even more terrible is the fight for the right to speak. Short videos have changed the content ecology. An obvious trend is that whether it is movies, TV series, novels, games, or music, Douyin has become an important engine on the content side. If a piece of content becomes popular on Douyin, there is a high probability that it will spread to the entire Internet in a short period of time.
In August last year, Douyin established an entertainment department, and Douyin Music and Soda Music were integrated into the Chinese music business. Half a year after its launch, Soda Music DAU increased from about 5 million to about 8 million,
Therefore, facing the overwhelming momentum of Douyin, Tencent must rely on WeChat, a social tool, if it wants to reverse its decline in the field of audio entertainment.
Bohu Finance believes that the "Listen" function is to divert traffic from WeChat to video accounts and stimulate WeChat users' desire to participate and share. It is mainly to increase the stickiness of video accounts and stimulate the development of video accounts.
first looks at the function of listening.
clicks on the "Music" option in "Listen", and "Live Music" and "Music Fan Circle" appear at the top of the page. These two functions are tightly bound to the video number.
Faced with the huge traffic pool of WeChat video accounts, one can imagine the attraction of this "traffic" to music creators. Video accounts have already tasted the appeal of
music. While its influence is far less than that of other short video platforms, the several online concerts it has held have gone out of the circle and become hits on major social platforms. Take Cui Jian's online concert as an example. Data released by the sponsor Jihu Motors shows that the number of online viewers on the night of the concert exceeded 46 million+; the number of exposures within the WeChat ecosystem of the concert was 1.2 billion+; the Jihu WeChat index reached a record high. The peak value increased by 54 times compared with before the event, and more than 100 mainstream media reported on it.
This is also the biggest advantage of video accounts. With WeChat's super private domain traffic, the content on video accounts can achieve amazing dissemination effects. Relying on "tools" such as Moments and public accounts, online live can effectively reach users. , to achieve fast enough propagation and fission, "no one can escape under the swipe of the screen."
But the problem with the video number is also obvious. The content ecology of video accounts is not yet mature, and it has not formed a differentiated competitive advantage with Douyin and Kuaishou, making it difficult to generate user stickiness. This is also reflected in the fact that the user usage time of video accounts is relatively low compared to other platforms.
According to the "2022 China Mobile Internet Semi-Annual Report" previously released by quest mobile, as of June 2022, the monthly activity of video accounts has reached 813 million, exceeding Douyin's 680 million and Kuaishou's 390 million, but its average daily users The usage time is only 35 minutes, which is far less than Douyin’s 118 minutes and Kuaishou’s 119 minutes.
So unlike platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Bilibili, video accounts have not yet seen any real “hot hits.”
"Listen" can not only extend the user's time, but also enrich the content of the video account to a certain extent and stimulate user activity. But the premise of all this is that "Listen" is successful.
03 written at the end
As we enter the New Year, the second generation that is most discussed in the industry is the new competition among giants.
In January this year, Tencent and Byte broke the ice. The once-banned "Honor of Kings" is finally released on Douyin. Tencent’s game purchases also focus more on Douyin. But this does not mean that competition has disappeared. On the contrary, in the short video field, competition is intensifying.
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