Disassembling strangers Social: Is the "lonely antidote" valuable?

Author | Sherry

Edit | Kwaiichi

Soul moved from Nasdaq to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with the story of "Social Social", and once again launched an charge to the capital market.

According to Soul's prospectus, in the three years of 2019-2021, its revenue rose from 70.7 million to 1.281 billion. Behind this, its losses also expanded from 353 million to 1.324 billion, and a total of 2.256 billion "burned" in three years. If it is placed five years ago, this loss may not be nothing in the face of a beautiful story, but in the moment when the industry is killing and lacking money, such a loss is difficult to ignore.

Today, the model of capital on "burning money for growth" is becoming more and more vigilant, and the tolerance of losses is getting lower and lower. Not long ago, the stock price plummeted by 20%after the US Social Giant Match Group announced a US $ 32.4 million financial report in the second quarter. You know, before that, Match Group made a profit for five consecutive years and made a profit of US $ 180 million in the first quarter of this year.

Burning 2.2 billion in three years, and Match Group, who has turned losses, can't help but re -examine the industry. Is it a good business of strangers? Is there any money to make in this market?

In fact, Momo, a "elder brother" in the domestic strangers, began to make profits in 2015 before the birth of Soul, and has remained until now. In 2021, the net revenue of Momo Mother's Ziwen Group was 14.576 billion yuan and net profit exceeded 2 billion yuan.

Even LITMATCH, which re -engraved Soul overseas, has gradually revealed gold absorption. At the beginning of this year, the Chinese non -game application of Data.AI's Chinese non -game revenue has continued to go to the top 30 list.

Picture source: data.ai

The social exit company, which is equivalent to SOUL users, has just handed over a semi -annual performance with double profits. This is a Chinese company focusing on overseas, and its main business is the social network of strangers.

By comparing the core business data and strategy players of Soul and Akiko City, maybe it can be answered: Is it possible to make money by strangers? How can I make money?

A track, two destiny

Let's look at the situation of the entire track. According to Statista data, the global market size of the smaller DATING Service has increased from US $ 4.051 billion in 2017 to US $ 6.568 billion in 2020, which is expected to reach nearly 10 billion US dollars in 2024. DATING Service does not represent the entire stranger's social network, but this also shows that the socialization of strangers still has greater prospects, and this market is still waiting for more "Nuggets".

All kinds of facts show that SOUL's losses cannot blindly throw the pot to the market and the environment. While SOUL loses high -profile losses, some people are still making money silently in some corners that do not know the public.

Compared with Soul, Akiko City is also on the social track of strangers. The social roads of the two began in the same period (Around 2016). Ten thousand). The biggest difference between the two is that Soul's market is in China, while Chizi City is completely focused on overseas.

Because Akiko City's 2020 business also has a certain proportion of traffic such as advertising platforms and other businesses, we can see the following points with some key data of the 2021 annual performance of 2021, we can see the following points:

1. Akiko City's social business in December last year was about 70%of SOUL's average annual life;

2. Soul's revenue last year was 1.28 million, and Akiko City was 2.360 billion;

3. SOUL's net loss last year was 1.324 billion, and the city of Chizi City lost 387 million;

4. After adjustment, Soul lost 999 million last year, and the net profit of Chizi City was 308 million;

5. Sales cost, Soul last year was 1.513 billion, and Akiko City was 505 million;

6. R & D costs, Soul last year, 48 million, and 131 million in Chizi City.

If it is more focused and compared with social business alone, from the performance trailer of the Akiko City 2022H1, its social business's revenue (approximately 145 million) in the first half of this year is equivalent to Soul's annual revenue last year. At this time, the net profit of the home of Akiko City was about 0.75-095 billion-according to the Announcement of Akiko City, its innovation business is currently in a state of losing money.

The above gap is the different choices of the two in strategy and path.

Three forks

Like the consistent play in China, Soul has always focused on the target (even the only) target. From the comparison of revenue and profits, it can be seen that in the past year, in order to maintain scale, Soul invested a lot of marketing costs, but in the end, it was exchanged for 1.281 billion revenue with 1.5 billion sales costs.

What's more optimistic is that in the prospectus of Soul last year to the US IPO, its average monthly life of Q1 in 2021 was 33.2 million. This means that in the next three quarters of 2021, after spending a lot of marketing costs, its monthly work declined. In terms of scale growth, Soul has seen the ceiling and a billion marketing investment, which only maintains the existing scale. If there is no new stimulus and new monetization method, the word "profit" seems to have a long distance for Soul. On the other hand, although the management of its management at the performance of 2021, its management emphasized that 2021 is a "priority" year, but in this year, the growth of its scale is not exchanged for "at all costs". From the perspective of business, its business is still making money, and the adjustment of net profit after adjustment has doubled.

In 2022, the so -called "high -quality" growth of management, its ability to make money is once again reflected, and in the first half of the year, when MAU increased slightly, the net profit attributable to the mother had doubled year -on -year. This continuous profitability is important and precious at the moment when the Internet industry is cold.

What factors cause this difference? We look for answers from three aspects: product, strategy, and market.

● Tool -type product VS content products

"I am glad to meet you, add a WeChat." This may be the biggest pain point of all tool -type strangers.

Usually, what users need are not a social software, but a social relationship. Users have applied to friends on the friends of the friends, and strangers have gradually become acquaintances, and they can easily transfer to platforms such as WeChat and WhatsApp. The fatal result of this is low and duration.

On the other hand, a tool -type dating app like Soul and Tinder is also facing a huge problem of uneven proportion of men and women. On the one hand, because there are few female users, it is difficult for most male users to respond and lose; on the other hand, female users are easily disappointed because of the quality of male users.

The content -type social products have largely solved these pain points.

Cultivate the content ecology in social products, add live broadcast, voice, game and other entertainment scenarios, which fundamentally solves the problem of "staying the user". After all, there are no programs you like in WeChat or WhatsApp.

This is what Chizheng has been doing from the beginning. Match has also tried to develop in this direction in the past two years. Not only did he add more content scenarios in Tinder, it also acquired video social software AZAR last year.

On the other hand, the content of the content brings more changes, not only for the platform, but also for users. Users, especially female users, can produce UGC content on social platforms to obtain benefits. This has become an important driving force for female users to stay on the platform, and the rich content supply also largely meets the needs of male users.

● Single product strategy VS matrix strategy

From a strategic point of view, Akiko City adopts a matrix style, which has deployed multiple vertical subdivided tracks around the socialization of strangers. At present, the company has the main "social+live broadcast" application MICO and the main "voice room mode". YOHO, Yumy, which focuses on "Heart Matching+Video Chat".

Soul focuses on a product. "Don't look at the face value and look at the soul" once became the biggest feature of its killing of the siege, but it also caused discussions -whether the social relationship of strangers needs to "look at the value". After the "killing pig plate" and "people's training class", the biggest features have now become imprisonment.

Akiko City has not tangled too much about "philosophical problems" such as Yan value. If you want to see your face value, you can go to MICO and Yumy; if you don't want to look at your face/face, you can go to YOHO; you like to share, love to show yourself, go to MICO; do not like to make fun, just want to be quiet 1V1 private chat, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, can Go to yumy ...

Multi -product and multi -mode matrix allows Akiko City to deal with different social needs. After all, when there is it in each vertical circle, it naturally does not need to worry about the problem of "breaking the circle".

More importantly, each subdivided track has their own imagination, which also makes its social business ceiling a higher. At the same time, in terms of monetization, multiple products include universal changes, such as membership services, gift delivery, etc.; Also customized scenarios customized the characteristics of their respective product characteristics, such as Mico's live reward, Yumy's paid calls, etc.

By the way, Akiko City also participated in the privatization of the Blue City brothers some time ago. Its latest profit trailer also mentioned "(the Group will) enrich the company's product matrix through the method of extension mergers and acquisitions at the right time, expand business boundaries ... … "This is hard to not be associated, and its future may be involved in a field through Blue City -same -sex social. That will be a new story.

Not only Akiko City, Momo chose to acquire the exploration. After the Tinder of the graphic social social, Match Group also acquired video social application AZAR some time ago, and it also has HINEE, which focuses on serious dating, and so on.

The charm of strangers is that it can meet people's more subdivided and more distinctive social needs. This is destined to be a fine track, and it is difficult to appear a situation of products. For players on this track, instead of expecting a product to "break the circle" to attract more people, bring out more "exquisite" products to meet the needs of users is a better problem solving solution. ● Domestic market VS Overseas Market

In terms of markets, the differences between domestic markets and overseas markets are related to key issues such as customer acquisition costs and user quality, which has created the differences between R & D costs and marketing costs.

Although there are huge population bases and relatively uniform and more familiar cultures in China, the population dividends of the mobile Internet have faded, marketing costs are high, and competition is "fierce". Although overseas is not concentrated enough, it requires one by one to overcome, but the relatively low customer acquisition costs and high payment rates in developed markets are very attractive.

The advantage of the domestic market is that in a market with unified culture and cognition, Soul can play a standardized product. The Castle City does customized services, which not only has different functions of multiple products, but also needs to be adapted to local conditions according to different markets.

But this also means that competition is difficult. From the time of the two entered the social track, around 2016, for the social network of strangers in China, it is already a "difficult model"; and the Middle East, Southeast Asia and other markets, which started the social business of Akiko City, are still very friendly here. The "blue ocean", for emerging markets with strong social entertainment demand and Internet penetration rates that are still improving. The arrival of Chinese companies such as Chizi City fills gaps.

With the high penetration rate of the Internet in China, Soul has almost used the overwhelming marketing to "wash" the target users, so it is difficult to grow at a high speed with the investment in marketing, and the ceiling has existed; while the city of Chizi City is the city; After obtaining the "starting advantage" in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and other markets, it is still continuously developing a new market. It can quickly attract a new group of users at a relatively low cost.

Of course, such a new market and new model are also open to Soul. The premise is to have the courage, capital and powerful localization capabilities of "going global", which is by no means a day. Moreover, LITMATCH has been stepped forward on this road.

Even today, the bonus in overseas markets is far greater than the domestic market. Otherwise, LITMATCH will not watch Soul's substantial losses, and insists on entering Southeast Asia in 2019.

In summary, the difference between Soul and Chizheng in product strategy and market selection, which created the huge differences in the scale, cost composition and profit in the case where the user volume was similar, and also created their different destiny today.

At the end is the Yuan universe?

Today, although the path is very different, the two meet again in the "Yuan Universe" again. Not only that, a large number of emerging social platforms such as "gel" rushed in with the story of the Yuan universe, which made people have to believe that the end of the socialization of strangers is the Yuan universe.

At present, the Yuan universe of Akiko City is more in the water test stage. Its Yuan universe module has been in the internal testing stage, and the attempts of virtual images and virtual scenes also choose more to cooperate with external companies. Since the beginning of this year, Akiko City has announced strategic cooperation with many domestic virtual technology companies. The main energy of the company's itself is still around existing business, upgrading products, unlocking new markets, and so on.

Under the pressure of the IPO, Soul is more urgent to the Yuan universe, and the layout is faster and more landed. Of course, this is also related to the environment of the Chinese market.

SOUL has completely positioned itself as "the social platform of the universe", and its main core highlight is "virtual image". Maybe you haven't downloaded Soul, but you must have encountered its advertisement somewhere, and it is very likely that the news that "Soul pinch the face division is 45,000 per month".

While shouting to refuse to "look at the face", I wanted to make people spend money to give myself a satisfactory virtual image. The young people this year make Soul understand. At the same time that the topic of "face squeezer" caused heated discussions, Soul introduced itself to the public over and over again -a social application of the Yuan universe, hoping to tell a more sexy story to the capital market.

Unfortunately, we have not yet seen that Soul's user data "leap" with the salary and discussion of the face master.

A more critical issue is that the Yuan universe is not only an imaginative dream, but also means a lot of money, time, and energy investment. "ALL in" Meta has been frequently questioned by the capital market due to its decline in performance. How much capital can pay for SOUL who has been losing money to pay for dreams?

The innovation of technology is inevitable, and the social interaction of strangers is likely to wait for the Yuan universe. However, for the many players in the industry, the problem is now that the social network of strangers is already a track with a "money scene". How can I put the visible money into the pocket? Intersection

After all, dreams are everyone, and everyone can tell the story, and the real gold and silver in the financial statements really belong to themselves.

*This article is based on public information, which is only used as information exchange, and does not constitute any investment suggestions

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