China’s video platforms are plummeting in market value. What lies ahead for iQIYI, Bilibili and their millions of active users?
Subscription video platform iQiyi’s market capitalization stood at nearly $20 billion in 2021. Since then, the value of the Chinese video-streaming giant has plummeted 73.5 percent to just $5.3 billion.
Similarly, previous investor darling and short video-streaming platform Bilibili saw its value drop from $54 billion to $6.5 billion in the same time frame.
Compare this to Douyin, which was named the world’s most valuable unicorn in H1 2022 with a $200 billion valuation. What happened to China’s former streaming powerhouses?
Losing luster
Bilibili was once praised for its unique business model and popularity among China’s youth, particularly those with an interest in anime, comics, and games.
As China’s closest counterpart to Youtube (which is currently censored in the nation), Bilibili has over 600,000 active content creators across its platform. The app focuses heavily on community as opposed to “professional content” platforms like iQiyi, which are better known for their variety shows, movies and more.
The platforms are still behemoths though. Bilibili ranks third by global traffic share in the Arts & Entertainment category, just after YouTube and Netflix. iQiyi, founded by Baidu in 2010, is not as well known as its fellow streamers but has nearly 130 million paid subscribers. In comparison, Netflix stands at 238 million paid subscribers and Disney+ at 157 million. So what led to the downturn? Continue to read the full article here
