Inside Top Global Platforms of the Creative Industry (2)
This article was originally published in Platum.
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Platum article URL: https://platum.kr/archives/207050
iQIYI (爱奇艺)
iQIYI (爱奇艺) is China’s leading OTT service. It is currently one of the largest online video sites in the world, with nearly 6 billion hours of service usage per month and more than 500 million monthly active users.
Emphasizing the concept of paid VIP membership under the banner of ‘light luxury’, iQIYI has grown by offering premium content, high-end audio-visual experiences and unique offline membership services exclusively for VIP members.
iQIYI is a NASDAQ-listed company with a market capitalization of approximately $7 billion. It was founded with investment from Baidu and is now a subsidiary of Baidu. In addition to being the number one OTT provider in China, iQIYI also has content production capabilities, including entertainment and drama.
iQIYI has been called the Chinese version of Netflix. Initially, it mainly provided a replay service, but in 2017, it increased the proportion of self-produced content and began exporting overseas as its quality was recognized. It sources a variety of VR content from China and around the world, and provides it with dedicated VR devices. In 2018, at the Single’s Day ((光棍節): Chinese version of Black Friday) event in 2018, we ranked first in both sales volume and sales value, creating a success story for our device + content package.
iQIYI serves as a bridgehead to China for overseas media companies that cannot enter the country directly due to Chinese government sanctions. Among OTT platforms, iQIYI has the most interest in Korean content and the Korean market, and has not only distributed content but also entered the Korean market directly, such as exclusively supplying the dramas “My Love from the Stars” and “Descendants of the Sun” to the Chinese market.
Baidu(百度)
Baidu (百度) is the world’s largest Chinese-language search engine and portal site. With more than 700 million users, Baidu has a 70% search market share in China. Baidu was established in January 2000 by two founders in Zhongguancun High-tech Zone (中關村), Beijing, with the purpose of “simple and reliable website”.
Baidu is one of China’s three largest IT companies, along with Alibaba and Tencent. They are collectively known as “BAT” after their initials. Like Google, Baidu derives most of its revenue from advertising, displaying keyword and brand ads at the top of search pages, as well as banner ads. It also has the technology to partner with advertisers to show personalized content to users.
Baidu is also considered the most advanced company in autonomous driving technology in China. Baidu’s ACE Traffic Engine smart transportation solution has now been deployed in 63 cities, 12 more than last quarter, and has been applied in cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Changsha and Chongqing, greatly improving transportation efficiency. Baidu will also launch its own smartphone this month. It will be the first major Chinese tech company to produce a smartphone.
Baidu is also actively promoting its entry into the video industry. One example is the medium-length video platform Haokan Video (好看视频). Haokan Video has grown rapidly thanks to Baidu’s massive search traffic. It also uses Baidu’s AI to improve user satisfaction through content recommendations. Because it can be linked to Baidu search, it features a large number of channel entries from organizations and brands. It is a platform that can be used for both brand promotion and search results.
Sina(新浪)
Sina (新浪), known as Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, is a first-generation online company. It was founded on November 30, 1998 as a search service, and Sina Weibo has served in August 2009. Several companies launched Weibo services to compete, but Sina was the winner.
Weibo is a social media platform based on user relationships, characterized by rapid information exchange, public opinion generation, and dissemination based on celebrity fandom culture. Weibo’s recommendation mechanism uses related tags, geography, and discussion topics to guide users. Celebrity and brand marketing makes the best use of these characteristics, and the official pages of celebrity fan clubs and brands with a presence in China, both domestically and globally, are often the first to be created on Weibo.
Authenticated celebrities and brands provide V-verification to prevent impersonation by the public. After focusing mainly on text and images, the company is actively investing in video content and creators to meet the trend of video consumption.
