Original title: Tencent invested 6.9 billion yuan in Huya and douyu live platforms
Within a day, Tencent has invested in two major game live platforms: douyu and Huya.
On the evening of March 8, huanju times (NASDAQ: YY) announced that its live broadcast platform, Huya, had obtained round B financing from Tencent, with a financing amount of $461.6 million (about 2.923 billion yuan), which is also the largest single investment obtained by Huya live. Boosted by this news, the stock price of huanju times before the market rose by more than 6%.
After the completion of financing, huanju era is still the controlling shareholder of Huya. However, Tencent also obtained a right: to continue to acquire the equity of Huya at a fair market price, and finally obtain 50.1% of the voting rights of Huya.
Li Xueling, CEO of huanju times, said that after Tencent became a strategic partner of Huya live, he believed that together with Tencent, Huya and Tencent will better serve the young game users in China, providing live games, video games and other content services. Huya live will also consolidate its leading position in the live broadcast market in this strategic cooperation.
Li Xueling also said that Huya will still be controlled by huanju times and will continue to bring value returns to shareholders of huanju times.
It is quite dramatic that on the morning of March 8, douyu, the competitor of tiger teeth live broadcast, just announced that it has completed the financing of 630 million US dollars (about 3.98 billion yuan) exclusively invested by Tencent.
Within a day, the two platforms of the first echelon in the field of game live broadcasting, from their fierce competitors, have jointly become a member of Tencent's investment territory.
The live broadcast of douyu, which was launched in 2014, was favored by Tencent when it raised $100 million (about RMB 670 million) in round B financing in 2016, and then Tencent continued to lead the investment in round C financing of douyu.
The investment in Huya is the first for Tencent.
Huya, formerly known as YY live broadcast, completed round a financing in May 2017, led by China Ping An Insurance Overseas (Holdings) Co., Ltd., with the participation of Gao Rong capital, Yilian capital, Chenxing venture capital, Li Xueling, chairman of the board of directors of huanju times, and Dong Rongjie, CEO of Huya live broadcast.
The positioning of fighting fish and tiger teeth are live games, and the fierce competition between them is particularly concerned by the outside world.
According to the 2017 mobile Internet industry list released by Aurora big data on January 16 of this year, the three online live broadcast apps with the highest market penetration are respectively douyu live, YY live and Huya live, with penetration rates of 3.6%, 3.3% and 2.9% respectively.
When it announced the completion of round D financing in January 201711, douyu also announced the news of achieving profits. In the fourth quarter report of 2017 released on March 6 in the happy gathering era, it said that Huya live broadcast broke through the profit and loss point to achieve profits.
In September 2017, Hu Ya's host "snake elder brother" jumped to the job of douyu. At the end of 2017, Wei Shen, the host of the game of douyu became popular, and "sy is a cute girl" jumped to the job of Huya. It is said that the signing fee of Wei Shen and Huya is up to 15 million yuan, but this claim has not been confirmed by Huya. Later, the fighting fish announced to pursue the breach of contract of the two anchors, and the war between the live platforms was again ignited by the "fight for people".
Can Tencent's successive investment in douyu and Huya quell the fierce battle between the two? No matter what, Tencent, which has invested nearly 7 billion yuan, will usher in the harvest period. On the one hand, the happy gathering era has officially released the news that Huya will go to the U.S. for IPO on March 6, and has submitted an application to the CSRC, while douyu is also said to be preparing to go to Hong Kong for listing; on the other hand, the game business As Tencent's most important revenue segment, it also has natural business collaboration with game live broadcast, e-Competition and other industries. Tencent will benefit a lot from user traffic and channels by taking the two most popular platforms of game live broadcast.