CBN Friday Special丨The changing game field: Can Weibo hold on to its second chance in Hong Kong?

2021年12月10日 19:59   21世纪经济报道 21财经APP   李莹亮,见习记者张然
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S: Hi everyone. Welcome to CBN Friday Special, I’m Stephanie LI.

R: And I’m ZHANG Ran. We’ll take a closer look at some of the news events that happened in the past week.

S: Today we will look at Weibo’s secondary listing in Hong Kong. Shares of China’s twitter-like social media giant closed 7.2 percent below their issue price in Hong Kong on Wednesday, as it became the latest U.S.-listed Chinese stock to seek out a secondary listing closer to home. Weibo first made its debut in Nasdaq back in 2014, once a winner in the competition of Chinese internet giants.

R: Yes. As the first micro-blogging platform in China, Weibo, which is made by the tech company Sina, has beaten its rivals made by Tencent, NetEase, and Sohu to become the most popular one. As of September 2021, Weibo had 573 million monthly active users, which is more than one-third of the population in China.

However, Weibo’s revenue seems irrelevant compared with its tremendous amount of users. The third-quarter revenue of Weibo is 3.8 billion yuan, while Kuaishou, whose monthly active users are also 573 million, reported a more than 20 billion yuan revenue. 

S: Despite the exponential growth in market for short-video and livestreaming in recent years, Weibo always appears to be one step behind. Weibo launched livestreaming function in 2016, but when it pushed to integrate its livestreaming business through acquisition in 2018, there wasn’t much space left for it in the market.

Similarly, Weibo only started incentive plans for content creators to turn to video-making until 2020, which was way too late compared with other short-video platforms.

R: I know right? When talking about short-video and livestreaming, what pops up in our head would be Douyin or Taobao, but not Weibo.

But it’s undeniable that Weibo still makes great social impact, because after all these years, it has established its brand to be an important source of information and the main platform for public discussions.

S: Speaking of public discussions, what do you think are the most popular topics on Weibo?

R: Well, entertainment news I guess.

S: Yes, contents of entertainment, stars, or idols attracted the most clicks on Weibo. But “Fan Quan”, or the irrational fan culture, also hurt cyber environment. The Cyberspace Administration of the CPC Central Committee (CAC) in June decided to launch a two-month campaign to rectify the distorted fan culture. The campaign focused on “cleaning up” celebrity rankings, hot topics, fan communities, and interactive comments to put a stop on cyberbullying, which apparently targeted a huge part of Weibo’s business. The micro-blogging platform said it has adjusted its rules to follow the new regulations, but it’s still unknown how much impact these changes would make on its business.

R: What Weibo should be worried about now is the reduction of customers for its advertising business, which is still the main source of its revenue. Report shows that 88.6 percent of the company’s third-quarter revenue comes from its advertising and marketing businesses. However, the number of its customer has dropped 43 percent to 800 million.

We’ll wait and see if the Hong Kong listing will bring new changes to the company. But speaking of Weibo’s secondary listing, it seems that there is a trend of U.S.-listed Chinese companies seeking secondary or dual primary in Hong Kong.

S: You are right. Data shows that Hong Kong and the mainland STAR Market have attracted $15.2 billion worth of secondary listings from U.S.-listed Chinese companies so far this year, largely due to strong regulatory headwinds on both sides. The SEC finalizes rules to end the trading of Chinese company shares in the U.S. last Friday, prompting a heated discussion for these firms to find a way to list closer to home.

Plus, China is tightening scrutiny on overseas listings through variable interest entity or VIE structures, which is used by companies including Alibaba, Tencent and Didi, to enable them to sell shares overseas.

12月8日,微博在港交所正式挂牌上市,股份代码为“9898”。通过全球发售,微博最终的发行价定为每股272.8港元,但开盘即破发,截至收盘,报收253.2港元,跌幅7.18%,市值约594亿港元。

这是微博的第二次上市,第一次是2014年的4月17日,当时,以微博在纳斯达克上市为标志,中国互联网市场的“微博大战”也落下了帷幕。

上线于2009年8月的新浪微博,是中国门户网站中第一个推出的微博产品,随后,腾讯、网易、搜狐等门户网站也分别推出微博产品。而在诸多微博产品的竞争中,起步最早的新浪微博最终脱颖而出。在其上市以后,其他门户网站的微博产品相继关闭,“微博”也成为了“新浪微博”的专属。截至2021年9月,微博的月活用户达到5.73亿,平均日活跃用户为2.48亿。

对微博而言,其目前最大的掣肘就是与用户规模不匹配的营收,拿微博在招股书中对标的快手来比,2021年第三季度,快手的月活为5.73亿,日活为3.2亿,营收为205亿元,而与快手月活相当的微博,营收却只有约38亿元。

过去七年,互联网行业出现的一些风口,微博也积极拥抱过,但结果都有些不尽如人意。

2016年,微博推出直播功能,到2018年四季度,微博进一步收购一直播产品。但现在回顾整个直播行业的发展趋势会发现,2018年底,整个直播行业格局已经趋于稳定,传统直播产品的市场红利也消失殆尽,微博此时再通过收购进行直播业务整合,步子明显慢了。

而对于当时风头正盛的短视频,直到2020年下半年,微博才启动视频号计划,以通过流量支持来激励微博的头部内容创作者转向视频创作。与短视频行业近两年的增速相比,微博仍不够快,甚至反应滞后。

不过,虽然在直播、短视频等产品上,微博都起个大早却赶个晚集,但这并没有影响微博社交媒体平台的地位及影响力。核心原因,是因为微博经过多年的积累,形成了五大核心平台属性,分别是公开、实时、病毒式、全面以及社交。这些属性汇集于一体,让微博至今仍是中国互联网最高效的信息传播平台。

这也是为什么,微博会成为很多信息的发源地,即便不是源头,也是引爆舆论的主要平台。而这些,也推动了微博近几年用户的持续增长,并保证了微博的市场地位。

微博更是推动了娱乐行业的流量经济发展,娱乐明星内容也成为了微博最重要的流量来源,但也大大伤害了微博平台真正的活力。

今年6月15日,国家网信办开展“‘饭圈’乱象治理”专项行动,随后于2021年8月25日发布《关于进一步加强“饭圈”乱象治理的通知》(简称“通知”),旨在治理有关明星的网络“饭圈”乱象,特别是在明星排行榜单、热门话题、粉丝社群及粉丝互动功能等方面,遏制谩骂、污名化、教唆、制造对立、侮辱、诽谤、造谣、恶意营销和传播其他有害信息等。

微博在招股书中表示,其已在适用于微博业务的范围内采取了通知中规定的措施,包括取消平台上的明星势力榜功能。

饭圈乱象的出现,微博逃不了干系,而对饭圈乱象的整治,对微博也势必带来影响。只不过目前,对微博究竟产生多大的影响尚不得知,这可能要从下个季度的财报中才能找到一些答案。

根据微博Q3财报,在营收构成上,广告及营销收入是微博最主要的营收来源,占总营收的比重为88.6%。但是,微博的广告主数量却连年下降。2021年前三季度,微博的广告主数量为80万,较去年同期的140万减少了60万。

第二次上市,除了募集约13.8亿港元的资金外,能否给微博带来一些新起色,值得期待。

 

R: Right. On a different note, the Chinese mainland reported 37 new local COVID-19 cases yesterday, including 24 from Inner Mongolia and 5 from Zhejiang.

全国昨日新增本土确诊37例(内蒙古24例,均在呼伦贝尔市;浙江5例,其中绍兴市3例、宁波市2例;云南5例,均在德宏傣族景颇族自治州;黑龙江2例,均在哈尔滨市;陕西1例,在西安市)。

 

S: And the central bank is trying to restrain the rise of the yuan after the currency hit a 3 1/2-year high against the dollar. Commercial banks were ordered Thursday to increase the amount of their foreign currency deposits that are held as reserves for the second time this year.

Thursday’s order raised banks’ foreign currency reserves to 9 percent of deposits from 7 percent. It was increased to that level from 5 percent in May, the first change since 2007.

为加强金融机构外汇流动性管理,中国人民银行决定,自2021年12月15日起,上调金融机构外汇存款准备金率2个百分点,即外汇存款准备金率由现行的7%提高到9%。市场人士表示,央行提升外汇存款准备金的意图,或是希望减缓人民币升值的压力和节奏,消息传出后离岸人民币汇率出现回跌,人民币兑美元跌破6.38关口。但临近年末,市场结汇需求旺盛,对人民币汇率仍有所支撑。

 

R: Last but not least, let’s take a quick look at the stock markets. Chinese stocks closed lower today with lithium battery and solar energy stocks leading the gains. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.18 percent, and the Shenzhen Component lost 0.24 percent. The Hang Seng Index closed 1.07 percent lower, dragged by a 1.11-percent loss in TECH Index.

周五A股股市走弱,沪指跌0.18%,深成指收跌0.24%。两市个股多数上涨,光伏、锂电池等高景气度板块携手走强。港股恒生指数收跌1.07%,恒生科技指数跌1.11%。

(欢迎大家提供意见和反馈,请联系主播李莹亮:liyl@21jingji.com)

Executive Editor: Sonia YU

Editor: LI Yanxia

Host: Stephanie LI

Writer: Stephanie LI, ZHANG Ran

Producer: XIANG Xiufang

Sound Editor: ZHANG Ran, Andy YUAN

Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Wanni

Co-produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News & SFC Audio/Video Dept.

Presented by SFC

编委:  于晓娜

策划、编辑:李艳霞 

播音:李莹亮

撰稿:李莹亮、张然

监制:向秀芳 

音频制作:张然、袁思杰 

设计:郑文静、廖苑妮

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