The presence is only a symbol, but the money is real – and that is what has made Kuaishou Technology so successful.
The ByteDance Ltd. competitor. has grown to become the largest live streaming platform for virtual gifts, with more monthly paying users than any other in the world. The company, which gives a cut of fan-made recommendations to actors, raised $ 5.4 billion in Hong Kong in the first largest public internet offering from Uber Technologies Inc. in 2019, conditions for the contract acquired by Bloomberg show.
That’s ready to create at least four billion people with a combined fortune worth $ 15 billion, based on the property announced in the Kuaishou forecast. Co-founders Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao will be worth more than $ 5.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Kuaishou, which means “quick hand,” is one of the largest internet success stories in China in the last decade, as part of a successful start-up with the support of Tencent Holdings Ltd. . and a tiny video format that has been adopted worldwide by the likes of Facebook Inc.
“The main resource of the internet is attention,” Su wrote in Kuaishou’s official biography in 2019. “It can be focused on large numbers of people as sunlight, rather than direct attention to a specific group of people. simple logic behind Kuaishou. “
Su, who hails from the Hunan province of China, studied computer programming at the prestigious Tsinghua University before joining Google in Beijing in 2006. There, he earned about $ 23,000 a year, eight times of the average wage of the country back then. While saying he was “extremely happy,” living in Silicon Valley encouraged him to start his own business, according to Kuaishou’s biography.
The 38-year-old man stopped Google during the global financial crisis to start his own video advertising campaign, which failed. After spending a short time with Baidu Inc., he became acquainted with Cheng in 2011 and it was not long before they decided to make a pair. In 2013, the pair transformed the Kuaishou app from a GIF maker to today’s social video platform, initially gaining popularity with the videos about life in rural China.
With the rise of Douyin at ByteDance, the Chinese twin app of TikTok, Kuaishou expanded its appeal, attracting influencers backed by talent groups and pop stars like Jay Chou in Taiwan. Along the way, he set up monetization by creating ad slots and in-app stores for brands and buyers.
While the purchase of significant gifts is still bread and butter – they make up nearly two-thirds of their revenue – the company is delving deeper into higher-end businesses such as e-commerce and an online game. Sales rose nearly 50% to 40.7 billion Yuan in the first nine months of last year, according to an IPO forecast.
Viewers spend an average of nearly 90 minutes on Kuaishou every day, and about a quarter of monthly users post content as well. While that strong communication differentiates Kuaishou from competing live streaming platforms such as Joyy Inc. and Momo Inc., the video short video we recently launched with the premium app Tencent WeChat has taken competition to another level.
The Kuaishou debate could be overshadowed by the IPO that could be its much larger competitor, ByteDance, which has 600 million daily Douyin users more than double Kuaishou. Last valued at $ 180 billion, it was said that the world’s largest startup was examining the listing of some of its businesses in Hong Kong while the U.S. last year tried to TikTok bans and forces app sales on national security concerns.
“Kuaishou has reconsidered its output and become more like Douyin,” Citic Securities Co. analyst Wang Guanran said in a note on Jan. 26. “There will be direct competition against each other in the future. coming. “
Kuaishou is not free from geopolitical tensions either. While Su told investors on Jan’s call. 25 that non-Chinese markets have the potential to be huge employment drivers, its platforms including Kwai and Snack Video are banned in India along with hundreds of Chinese apps while in which New Delhi and Beijing cross the border. controversies. In the U.S., the TikTok-style Zynn service has not received much traction since its launch in May last year.
The company also has to deal with a recent crackdown on live streaming. China said in November that it had to register actors and donors with their real names, banned small people from scavenging and called on the platforms to value virtual gifts. restriction.
However, investors have been in a hurry to get a piece of the first short video platform that will start trading on February 5. The IPO’s sales share was the largest ever recorded. , according to IFR, as the city ‘s market for new listings has been on fire recently. The commitment last year boosted the fortunes of top officials including those of Zhong Shanshan at Nongfu Spring Co. – now the richest man in Asia – and Pan Dong of Blue Moon Group Holdings Ltd.
The founder of Kuaishou is wary of the power he has amassed. In the company’s biography, Su compared his platform’s ability to control internet attention and traffic with the One Ring from JRR Tolkien’s trilogy “The Lord of the Rings”.
“When you put on the ring, you feel very powerful,” he wrote. “But of course, it is the ring and the power that controls you.”
This story was published from a wire group group with no text changes. Only the headline has changed.