The people’ republic of live streaming—the billion-collar live stream industry in China
What does an ideal part-time job in China look like?
Yimiao Guo woke up at 10 am on a sunny Saturday but she didn’t get out of bed right away. It’s the weekend, she usually likes to lie about in bed. After lunch, she cleaned up her table and opened a website named Bigo to start her work.
After around 2 hours, she finished her job for the day.
A decent salary, a flexible working timetable, the ability to work at home, opportunities to make friends and short work hours… A part-time job that satisfies all these conditions does not seem to exist, and even if it did exist, it would look like a scam. However, 24-year-old university student Yimiao Guo did find such a wonderful part-time job.
“I work 50 hours a month, and the monthly salary is $470 dollars for me.” Guo said, “In addition to this, you can get extra income, which depends on your personal efforts.”
Livestreaming is the charming part-time job that Guo has, and it is also a source of additional income for many other Chinese people today.
A national “Gold Rush”
Due to the rapid development of the internet, the live streaming industry has caused a huge “Gold Rush” in China.
In 2018, the population of online live stream viewers reached 456 million, which has become a huge market. The iiMedia Research forecasts that this population will exceed 500 million by2020, meaning that one in four of the people around you in China is watching a live stream.

This trend also has created huge profits.
According to a statistics done by Snowball Finance, there are at least 1.44 million live streamers across China’s seven major live stream platforms, and those platforms have generated total revenue of $6.779 billion CNY ($134 million AUD). The total cash flow of the seven main live stream platforms in China was $14.68 billion CNY ($3.0 billion AUD) in the first half of 2019.
The huge profit and the popularity of live streaming have attracted lots of people who want to share a piece of the cake.
“I see people go in and quit this industry all the time”, Guo said, “the live streamers change every day in the platform I work, you can find this from the job advertisements”.
“How are you today?”
The job of live streamers is not complicated.
As a part-time live streamer, Guo’s job is mainly to show her life. “Sometimes I show my daily life, like cooking, putting on makeup, even just cleaning my room. Sometimes it’s about having a chat with my audience”, Guo said, “but I can’t do live streaming when I’m studying because I have to maintain frequent interactions with my audience and find ways to attract them. This will distract me from my studies”.
In China, the contents of the current live-streaming industry are various. In addition to daily live streams, video game live streams and sports live streams, users are doing shopping live stream and virtual live stream now. Live stream shopping is now a promising model for boosting sales.
Easy money
For all the live streamers, there are two main ways of making money.
For individual live streamers, the main source of income is gifts from audiences. Some live streamers can get monthly base salaries depending on the different platforms. Yixuan Qiao, a regional manager of YY and a manager of BIGO LIVE, said that “The profit model of live streamers is mainly based on gifts from audiences, and some live stream platforms will have basic salaries according to the live streamers’ ability.”
Another profit model, which happens more for professional live streamers, is getting dividends from unions. Those unions are a bit like agencies, helping the live streamers to attract audiences. Generally, the profits for live streamers, unions and platforms is 40%, 10%, and 50%.
Ruoquan Su, a new media editor of CCTV, said: “I usually send gifts to the live streamers, which may be out of vanity because the live streamers will thank you and call your name in the live stream with thousands or even tens of thousands of audiences”.
“It’s not a lot of money”, Su said “I spend around $400 yuan ($80 AUD) a month on live streamers while my salary is $6800 yuan ($1360 AUD). I have spent more on it after I got a job because I can understand the live streamers more — — live streaming is their job.”
“Generally speaking, the profit model of our platform is mainly based on user recharge, and there is also some advertising revenue. Also, we have different business models in different regions.

A report done by Snowbal Finance shows, the audience who spent the largest amount of money is Moer, who spent around $3 billion yuan ($600 million AUD) in the first half of 2019.
“Peak oil”
There are many reports arguing that the live stream industry in China has already reached its peak. From the data report released by iiMedia Research, the growth rate of China’s live-stream audiences is declining year by year.
Ze Lin, a live streamer specializes in cars, said “There are too many live streamers now. This market almost reaches saturation, and the number of audiences is limited. It is getting harder and harder to keep users”.

However, a different situation was shown by live stream companies.
HUYA and DOYU are two listed Chinese live stream companies. From the financial reports released by those two companies, the live stream industry is experiencing a glorious era.
Showed by HUYA ‘s unaudited financial results for the second quarter of 2019, it has done an impressive revenue over the past year. The total net revenues for the second quarter of 2019 raised by 93.6% from $1,038.3 million CNY ($208 million AUD) in the same period of 2018 to $2,010.5 million CNY ($402 million AUD). The live stream revenue increased by 93.7% to $1,921.5 million CNY ($384 million AUD) in the second quarter of 2019, from $991.8 million CNY ($198 million AUD) in the same period of 2018.
What is the future?
Talking about the future career plan, Lin said that he would still earn money as a live streamer in the years when this industry is still popular, and then he will transform into other business. He believes that “This trend won’t last for a long time”
“Chinese audiences are already familiar with live stream industry, but many people in other countries have no idea about it. In that case, our company decided to specialize in the overseas live stream market. Now that the Internet is getting more developed, we are also planning to launch some Apps that compete with Facebook and YouTube. Live stream platforms can enrich people’s entertainment as well as will be more like social media, thus attracting more people to join”.
Managers from the live stream platforms also feel the industry is getting to the saturation point. Qiao said platforms like BIGO LIVE has already decided to march into the oversea market.
