Text/Mantis Finance (ID: TanglangFin)
Author/Chen Xiaojiang
Xiami, who wanted to discover a new world of music, ultimately failed to find a new world.
On January 5, Xiami Music officially announced that it will stop service on February 5. After 0:00 on March 5th, except for the website-end Yinluo platform musician (the original "digital music scene" business) authorized service to maintain operations, other operations will cease, and users will no longer be able to log in to Xiami Music. This means that after more than 10 years of Xiami Music, after leaving the toB business, they formally said the "unspeakable goodbye" to the C-end user.
I can’t say goodbye. In addition to Xiami Music, there are many loyal users behind it-the first heartbreak in the new year, crying, ye Qingjie, my music-related soul is gone... The heartbreaking voice of many Xiami Music users.
However, no matter the youth is over, or the soul is spared, without Xiami, online music will still not stop, and the earth will still turn.
On the day of the official announcement, QQ Music launched the "Xiami Songs One-click Move" function. In the early morning of the next day, NetEase Cloud Music also issued an announcement teaching you "how to migrate Xiami playlists to NetEase Cloud Music with one click." China Mobile Migu Music, which was established in the same year as Xiami Music, was announced on December 31, 2020. The number of its client users officially exceeded 100 million, and the scale of users in all scenarios reached 200 million. The number of users is still growing steadily.
On the Internet, the self-made migration map of Xiami Music fans has also begun to circulate, which may be more embarrassing than the fall of Xiami-no one cannot replace it, time will eventually wipe everything out.
Users want to use love to generate electricity, and online music platforms are hard to cook without rice
The most direct reason why Xiami Music can't go is that users don't want it.
According to Fastdata's "2020 China Online Music Industry Report" data, Tencent Music’s QQ Music, Kugou Music, and Kuwo Music apps will have 200 million, 188 million, and 72.48 million monthly activities in October 2020, respectively. NetEase Cloud Music has monthly activities in the same period. It was 88.95 million. In the same period, Xiami Music has only 22.36 million monthly livelihoods, which is only 1/4 of NetEase Cloud Music. How can Xiami play?
Relying on the feelings of a small number of users is obviously not enough to make capital pay the bill. In September 2019, Ali spent 700 million yuan to lead the investment in NetEase Cloud Music, and when it took 10% of the equity, Xiami Music’s shutdown ending has already been written down.
Even market research companies no longer pay attention to Xiami Music. In the "2020 China Mobile Internet Autumn Report" released by QM, it is Migu Music that has become the statistical caliber along with Tencent Music and NetEase Cloud Music. The latter has more than 200 million users in all scenes, and Xiami Music has no place.
Xiami music makes people sadly sigh that it fell in the era it had dreamed of.
According to Fastdata data, by October 2020, online music users will have more than 600 million monthly active users. The online music market is expected to exceed 14 billion by 2020, an increase of 30.8% from the 10.7 billion in 2019, and almost 8.63 billion in 2018. Nearly doubled. The habit of paying music users has also been developed, with more than 70 million paying users. This is the era Xiami Music once expected.
Hope to use the UGC production model-users upload various tracks, modify Xiami's music classification, etc., and then use the incentive mechanism of user upload and sharing-paid download-royalty sharing. Xiami Music has created a precedent for paying for music, and hopes to create a win-win ecological closed loop for users and musicians. However, this approach is subject to two major resistances, making Xiami Music embarrassed on both sides.
On the one hand, many musicians do not recognize it. For example, in 2010, 14 groups of artists, including Zhou Yunpeng, Li Zhi, Wan Xiaoli, and Thumbelina, collectively denounced "Xia Mi"-thinking that Xia Mi.com published works for audition and download without authorization, and protested through downloading for profit.
On the other hand, it faces the problem of user payment. Allowing users to pay to listen to songs, when the habit of paying music users has not been developed, when listening to music is the mainstream, it is no different from heaven. Wang Hao once revealed in an interview that “Xia Mi’s annual copyright fees are more than ten times the size of its income”. It is difficult to create a win-win closed loop through the UGC production model + online payment model, which is also an important reason for Xiami's subsequent sale of Ali.
When Wang Hao left Xiami in 2016, he left a message in Moments of "Some industries are destined to die, I just wait for him to Nirvana". According to industry insiders, one of the reasons is that Wang Hao does not see the public's hope of "paying".
Even today, the user payment rate is still not high enough, and the vast majority of prostitutes are still. Some media interviewed a certain netizen who was saddened by the closure of Xiami Music. Did they pay for Xiami Music? The answer was that it counts through Taobao 88VIP membership.
The data will not lie, the current online music payment rate in China is still not high. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, it was 5.3%, 6.3% and 8% respectively, and it has not exceeded 10% so far. Compared with Spotify, its 2020 Q4 performance outlook shows that monthly active users are expected to increase to more than 340 million, paying users are expected to increase to more than 150 million, and the payment rate is as high as 44.11%. The domestic music user payment rate is still very low. It can be seen that it is difficult to support the copyright, bandwidth and other operating costs of online music APP operations simply by paying for users.
From this perspective, the barren domestic music user payment environment is one of the original sins of Xiami's fall. This is an important reason for its subsequent sale of Ali, Ali's lack of attention to music copyright, and today's shutdown. It can be seen that users want to use love to generate electricity, but it is difficult for online music platforms to cook without rice.
After the three eras, the survival logic of online music platforms remains unchanged
Insufficient user willingness to pay is of course a key factor in the subsequent development and even transformation of Xiami. However, when the habit of paying in the market has not yet been developed, it is obvious that blaming users is "shocking the pot". Online music platforms cannot make blood by themselves. This is the real murderer behind the scenes and a problem that all platforms have to solve.
Zhihu author Zhang Shisan will be roughly divided into three stages, namely, the tool age, the copyright age and the pan-entertainment age, according to the growth focus of the online music track. Looking back on the development history of Xiami Music, although many development opportunities have been missed in these three stages, the essence of it is that it cannot make blood by itself, so it can't help it.
In the age of tools, music copyright is not a barrier to competition. Music APP is used as a tool for listening to songs. With its UGC model, Xiami Music has excavated many unique on-site works and a strong music community atmosphere, making it once the most popular online music software. And it has accumulated a large number of high-quality niche music users.
However, success is niche, and failure is niche. If you want to go far in the market and only serve a small number of core users for value-added realization, instead of pursuing the anti-business model of market share and user scale, the commercialization of Xiami Music is destined to be extremely difficult.
For example, Xiami Music, one of the earliest smart recommendations, does not completely follow the data and algorithm logic. Wang Hao once cited Faye Wong’s songs as an example, “90% of users like Faye Wong and know Faye Wong, so they don’t need to recommend it, and those who are recommended are 10% that everyone doesn’t know.” Another example is Wang Hao’s requirement that songs must be played by album. Order, not play heat or smart order.
Similar operations have won the hearts of many niche users, and Xiami Music is called "treasure". But for many ordinary users who only want to listen to popular songs, it is a bit ungrounded.
Today, the community reviews of Xiami Music that are talked about by Xiami users still focus on professional reviews of songs. They are different from the various complaints of NetEase Cloud Music, which is ridiculed as "Net Yiyun". It is the pure land of music. But in all fairness, the audience who really understand the professionalism of music is not in the same order of magnitude as the general public, and the various commentary content is just one of the fundamentals that NetEase Cloud Music can stand on. Many users think that every song in NetEase Cloud Music The excitement of the popular science, narration and emotional stories below the song even far exceeds the song itself.
With the advent of the copyright era, in the first wave of copyright battles in 2013, the stressed Xiami Music chose to seek refuge in the funder Ali. In the second year of joining, Ali spent 30 million yuan to win the music copyright of the third season of "The Voice of China", and subsequently signed exclusive cooperation agreements with many record companies such as Rolling Stone, Huayan and Media Asia. But the good times didn't last long. Although Ali was not short of funds to compete for music copyright, he ultimately failed to do what Xiami wanted.
In March 2015, Xiami Music and Tiantiandongting merged to form Ali Music. On July 8th of the same year, the National Copyright Administration issued the "Notice on Ordering Online Music Service Providers to Stop Unauthorized Distribution of Music", requiring online music service providers to clean up copyright-free music works, and ordering all online music service providers to remove unauthorized music All music works went offline, and the market structure changed accordingly.
On July 15, Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke officially joined Ali Music. The two joined and later led the rebranding of "Tiantian Tingting" to "Ali Planet", trying to create a music version of Taobao-a music ecological platform for the entire industry chain that integrates live broadcast, performance, music production, ticket peripherals, and community.
From 2015 to 2017, it has been a few years when domestic online music copyrights have been formalized. At this time, Xiami Music, which was merged with Tiantiandongting, did not receive sufficient copyright support and attention. Ali failed to step up the hoarding of copyrights, and instead focused on the "Ali Planet".
In 2016, Tencent further acquired the shares of Ocean Music, which owns Kuwo Music and Kugou Music, to form Tencent Music Group. Its QQ Music, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music are the best in music copyright. According to the data, the size of the music library of QQ Music of the Time reaches 15 million, while Xiami Music has only 4 million. Missing the battle for music copyrights resulted in no songs to listen to, which made Xiami Music, which once wanted to become the masses, returned to the minority again, laying the most important foreshadowing for today's shutdown.
In comparison, Migu Music, which was established in the same year as Xiami, has over 40 million original songs as of December 2020, with a coverage rate of over 95% of new songs, holding its ground. And relying on China Mobile’s advantages in 5G ultra-high-definition technology, in recent years, it has continuously launched 5G ultra-high-definition sound quality functions such as ultimate sound quality, aurora sound effects, and 3D, as well as creating immersive audio-visual entertainment such as 5G+4K+VR ultra-high-definition live broadcast. Found a differentiated competition route.
Undoubtedly, music copyright is of course the "winner" of online music track PK, but there is only copyright, no reasonable commercial monetization model, and user ecology. High music copyright fees will also make the platform face operational dilemma. The key is to change the music app from a song-listening tool to a pan-entertainment platform and find a reasonable monetization model.
Judging from Tencent Music’s 2020 Q3 financial report data, Tencent Music’s total revenue for the quarter was 7.575 billion yuan, of which online music service revenue was 2.324 billion yuan (online music subscription revenue was 1.46 billion yuan), and social entertainment service revenue reached 5.25 billion yuan, carrying the banner of Tencent Music Group's revenue.
It is worth mentioning that its online music service ARPPU is 9.4 yuan, while the social entertainment service ARPPU is 166.7 yuan. The comparison shows that the pan-entertainment of online music platforms is the main force of revenue, which cannot be separated from Tencent Music Incubation. The online music social entertainment business represented by "National K Song" can continue to create blood for Tencent Music.
Opportunities have always been there, especially in the 5G era. With the diversification of pan-entertainment scenarios, only by continuously deploying diversified content and services to meet the diverse needs of B-end and C-end users can they continue to transfusion , Find new opportunities.
Migu Music is like that. On the one hand, it launched "Migu Love Sing", focusing on the family K song entertainment scene, quickly seizing the big screen music field. Through parent-child, online education, audio radio, podcast co-creation and other sections, the layout of the big audio ecology, to provide users with more diversified content types. On the other hand, through the launch of equity joint membership with 12 companies including Himalaya, Mango TV, Baidu Netdisk, Suning.com, etc., to help Migu Music expand its users.
In addition, with the help of China Mobile's 5G+AICDE technology, Migu Music has been continuously upgraded in cloud performance technology production, ultra-high-definition experience, cloud interaction and business model, and gains differentiated competitive advantages with the help of new technology dividends. In December 2020, Migu created the world’s first 5G+4K/8K+XR cloud performing arts Miguhui, introducing cloud audience, cloud box, cloud playing Call and other new cloud performing arts games into the performing arts scene, and promoting Miguhui paid viewing The number of users exceeded 12.5 million, which is a good example.
On the other hand, Xiami Music, although it was the first to try music payment services and also created a music community, despite the lack of copyright and turbulent strategic positioning, it has not found a reasonable commercial realization path, which is the root of its failure.
In general, betting on NetEase Cloud Music and shutting down Xiami Music is the best choice for the current Alibaba Entertainment. For Xiami Music, dying in the new world it had dreamed of is its greatest sorrow.
*The pictures in this article are from the Internet
Welcome to the gathering place for financial enthusiasts, please add WeChat to communicate with friends: tanglangcaijing01
This content is [Mantis Finance] original,
It only represents personal views. Without authorization, no one may use it in any way, including reprinting, extracting, copying, or creating mirror images.
Some pictures are from the Internet, and the copyright ownership has not been verified. They are not for commercial use. If there is any infringement, please contact us.
Mantis Finance (WeChat ID: TanglangFin):
• Pan-financial new media.
• One hundred thousand WeChat + exposed text "Who killed the Victoria's Secret Show"? Creator of "
•Focus on: new business (including live broadcast, short video and other major entertainment), new marketing, new consumption (including new retail), listed companies, new finance (including financial technology), blockchain and other fields.