Recently, the long-lost Douyu head game anchor "pdd" appeared in other live broadcast rooms on the platform. According to him, he "still owes Douyu some time" and will leave Douyu after a while and "no longer does Douyu." This means that another pillar who accompanied Douyu founder Chen Shaojie to ring the bell on Nasdaq will leave Douyu. The news that
"pdd" is about to leave has dealt another blow to the confidence that the outside world has recently ignited due to Douyu's dividends. It is reported that in early July, Douyu suddenly announced that it would pay dividends of US$300 million to shareholders. According to the share composition disclosed by the company as of March 31 this year, Chen Shaojie could take away more than US$50 million. However, it is worth noting that Douyu was still losing money in the first quarter of this year. For this reason, this dividend was also called a "bleeding dividend" by many people.
In fact, Douyu’s revenue has been declining year after year since 2020, and it may now be difficult to poach top anchors through sky-high signing fees, or even stabilize the original top anchors. At the same time, with the rise of the short video industry, young users of Douyu are gradually being diverted, and mainstream users are beginning to age. Faced with these challenges, it is still unknown whether Douyu's new managers can lead Douyu to "make blood" again.
’s ace anchor is falling apart. How many “capable” ones are left on the platform?
Who is the "pdd" who stated that he is about to leave the Douyu platform, making users feel regretful? How is it related to the Douyu platform? According to
public information, "pdd" whose real name is Liu Mou, is a former professional player of League of Legends . He has played for ngg, ehome team, and ig team. He later joined the Douyu platform and became a game anchor. However, "pdd"'s latest live broadcast can only be traced back to November 14, 2023.
From retiring as a professional game player, to joining the Douyu platform to become a leading game anchor, he was "unparalleled" in the limelight for a while, and now he has been off the air for 244 days. "pdd"'s life experience seems to reflect the development of Douyu course. After
successfully advanced to the finals as a member of the ig team in the first Demacia Cup in 2014 and defeated the we team in the finals to win the championship, "pdd" officially announced his retirement on Weibo. At that time, e-sports fans had a lot of speculation about his whereabouts. In 2019, after withdrawing from Wang Sicong's live broadcast platform Panda TV, "pdd" suddenly announced that he had joined the Douyu platform and became a resident anchor. On the first day of broadcasting, he gained 140 million views, and the live broadcast room even experienced lag due to the influx of too many netizens.
In addition to "pdd", many top game anchors have also flocked to Douyu platform in recent years. What few people know is that this is inseparable from Douyu founder CEO Chen Shaojie. In the Qianbo War that year, he fired the first shot to compete for anchors.
When Douyu was first established, most of the financing it received was used to sign anchors. Starting from Douyu, major platforms started poaching anchors frantically. For example, "Baby Xuxu" who was once the mainstay of Dragon Ball Live and Panda Live was poached by Chen Shaojie to Douyu for a signing fee of 130 million. Before the broadcast was officially launched, fans were sending gifts to the black screen live broadcast room. This once made Chen Shaojie sigh, "Signing the contract with 'Xiyang Baby' in 2018 was the most correct decision I made."
In the year when "pdd" officially announced that it would join the Douyu platform and become a resident anchor, Douyu, like "pdd", has reached new heights.
In July 2019, Douyu was listed on Nasdaq. On the day of listing, "pdd", former dungeon and warrior professional player "Xu Yangbaobao" and others, together with Chen Shaojie, rang the bell on the Nasdaq in the United States. Chen Shaojie, founder and CEO of Douyu, said in his speech at the listing: "Today is Douyu's 'highlight' moment, but it is by no means a 'peak' moment. The sea is vast and the fish is leaping. Douyu will forge ahead with determination and continue to create new things for users and shareholders." More value, continue to lead the innovative development of the live broadcast industry.”
pdd (second from the right). Image source: pdd’s Weibo
The outside world once believed that the listing of Douyu ended the “Thousand Broadcast War” to a certain extent.
However, Chen Shaojie failed to lead Douyu to continue to lead the innovative development of the industry.In November 2023, Chengdu Dujiangyan Public Security Bureau issued a police report on Weibo stating that after investigation, Chen Moujie (male, 39 years old) was suspected of opening a casino and had been arrested in accordance with the law.
With the arrest of Chen Shaojie, Douyu’s anchor ecosystem also began to fall apart. Some top anchors are suspected of being implicated in the Chen Shaojie case. In April this year, it was reported that "Yiyi Xiao Tuantuan" was arrested in connection with the case. Others have switched to other places. For example, former Douyu star Feng Moti and "Xuxu Baby" have successively announced their premiere on Douyin.
paid out generous dividends despite the loss, and Chen Shaojie took away more than 50 million US dollars.
On July 3, Douyu issued an announcement stating that the company’s board of directors had approved and announced the dividends for the common shares recorded as of August 21, 2024 and the U.S. A special cash dividend of US$9.76 per share, or US$9.76 per American depositary share, is payable to holders of depositary shares ("ads"). The total cash dividends to be paid by Douyu this time is approximately US$300 million, which is expected to be paid to common stock holders and ads holders on or around August 30, 2024.
However, according to the latest financial report, Douyu’s revenue in the first quarter fell by 29.9% compared with the same period last year, with a net loss of 88 million yuan, while there was a net profit of 14.52 million yuan in the same period last year.
Although Douyu's move to distribute large sums of dividends when it was losing money is abnormal, it is not difficult to judge that it is to stabilize investor confidence, increase market activity, and especially stabilize the stock price. Since Chen Shaojie was arrested, Douyu’s stock price also fell to the ground. In 2019, Douyu was listed on Nasdaq with an issue price of US$11.5. At the end of last year, Douyu's share price fell to a low of $0.739 per share, and it faced the risk of almost delisting.
Nandu reporter noticed that according to the calculation of this dividend data, the two major shareholders, Tencent and Chen Shaojie, have become the "biggest beneficiaries" on the books. Public information shows that as of March 31, 2024, Tencent holds 38.2% of the shares, and Douyu founder and CEO Chen Shaojie holds 17.2%. Based on this calculation, Tencent can receive dividends of US$114 million, and Chen Shaojie can receive dividends of US$51.6 million.
Previously, a lawyer pointed out in media reports that Chen Shaojie’s specific sentencing may be between 5 and 7 years. Based on the current news, it is difficult to quantify the bail and fines that Chen Shaojie needs to pay. However, if this dividend can be obtained smoothly, Chen Shaojie may be able to alleviate certain financial pressure.
95 Can the post-95 "top managers" lead Douyu to "recover"
After the dividend news was released, Nandu reporters noticed that Douyu's stock price surged nearly 35% that night. However, after the short-term stock price rise, Douyu still faces many problems. How to "build blood and restore blood" after "bloody dividends" will be a big problem for the successor.
According to public information, as of the end of March this year, Douyu still had 3.684 billion yuan in cash on its account. However, Douyu still has many expenditure items. For example, at the end of 2023, Douyu’s board of directors and management approved a stock repurchase plan, according to which Douyu will repurchase up to US$20 million of common shares in 2024. As of March 31, Douyu has repurchased a total of US$2.7 million in ads (American depositary shares), and it still needs to spend US$17.3 million to complete the remaining repurchase plan.
Excluding dividends, repurchase plans and other funds, Douyu also carries current liabilities of 1.547 billion yuan.
All this means that Douyu must quickly improve its "hematopoietic" function and find ways to make more money as soon as possible to support future corporate expenses.
After Chen Shaojie was arrested, Douyu issued an announcement saying that the company's board of directors formed an interim management committee, consisting of the company's director and chief strategy officer Su Mingming, the company's director and vice president Cao Hao, and the company's vice president Ren Simin. An interim management committee will manage the company's operations until further notice.
disclosed according to the announcement that Ren Simin joined the company in June 2021 and was responsible for the project management office ("pmo"), responsible for project management and business compliance, streaming media management and content ecosystem. However, there are media reports that Ren Simin, who was born in 1995, is not an old employee of the company. In the past few years, he was mainly responsible for Chen Shaojie’s administrative work. However, after taking office, he was responsible for the final approval and business compliance of the work processes of each business line, and assisted the heads of each business line to advance Carry out work and be regarded as the actual top manager.Another source broke the news, saying that Ren Simin has only been at Douyu for two years. After
took office as the "top manager", it can be seen that Douyu is also making certain arrangements in terms of anchor operations, such as deeply integrating the advantages of anchors with the advantages of the platform, and launching official two-way commentary of events based on the personal IP of the head anchor. , anchor-named fan competitions and other customized content and provide corresponding on-site and off-site exposure. At the same time, in terms of specific business, we will start from the sales of game props, game advertising and distribution services to promote the diversification of the platform's income.
However, it is still doubtful whether Ren Simin, who has never experienced the "Thousand Broadcast War" and has an administrative background, can lead Douyu out of its predicament. The current situation is that the collapse of the scale of anchors and the continuous loss of users are hindering Douyu's "rebirth." At the same time, Douyu no longer has the capital reserves of the year, and uses sky-high signing fees to maintain the scale of top anchors.
According to the first quarter 2024 financial report released by Douyu on June 5, the company’s revenue in the first quarter was 1.040 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 29.9%. This downward trend has continued from 2020 to the present. At the same time, it suffered a loss of 88 million yuan in the first quarter and a net profit of 14.52 million yuan in the same period last year. The data on platform users is not optimistic either. In the first quarter, Douyu’s average monthly active users decreased by 4.9 million compared with 2023; in the first quarter, the average number of paying users decreased by 1.1 million compared with 2023; and in the core sector, live broadcast revenue also decreased compared with 2023. The same period last year dropped 41.5% to 8.009 billion yuan.
At present, the upheaval triggered by the arrest of Douyu founder Chen Shaojie still has aftershocks. Although in its first-quarter financial report, Douyu said that the company had proactively returned 111.7 million yuan in related income related to the illegal behavior of third-party anchors. However, with the departure of top anchors like “pdd” one after another, it is still unknown whether the Douyu ecosystem can recover as before.
Written by: Nandu reporter Lin Wenqi
