Since the second half of last year, Metaverse has become popular in the venture capital circle, like a strong and lasting dose of adrenaline that dominates the passion of industry parties and investment institutions. According to third-party data, in 2022, when new outlets have not yet appeared, Metaverse has attracted more than 70 investment and financing transactions. Among the many subdivision tracks of Metaverse, social networking is the scene that is closest to the daily life of users. The social platform Soul App is undoubtedly the pioneer and explorer in the field of social metaverse. After the metaverse concept became popular, Soul took the lead in entering the social metaverse track with social interests, and quickly became popular with the positioning of "creating a social metaverse for young people", and attracted the attention and pursuit of a large number of young people of generation Z. A few days ago, as soon as the news that Soul submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, it aroused intense attention and discussion in the industry. Many people in the industry said that Soul's determination and confidence to continue to make efforts on the social metaverse track should not be underestimated.
Launched in 2016, Soul is a virtual social network for a new generation of young people who build relationships based on interest graphs and design products with gamification. At the beginning of 2021, under the leadership of founder Zhang Lu, Soul proposed to build a "social metaverse" for the first time in the industry. This is a virtual world that is parallel to reality and online in real time, where people can experience a variety of immersive social scenes with their own virtual avatars and based on their interest maps or recommendations, and communicate together in a common experience that is close to real. Entertainment, and ultimately finding like-minded partners and building social connections.
In Soul's view, no matter what entry point is used to construct the metaverse, its essence is a reflection of the real world, and the key to this parallel world is the relationship between people. Grasping this essence, Soul continues to cultivate in areas such as social interests, expands multiple scenarios, and carries out technological innovations to bring more immersive social experiences to the Z generation group, while attracting more and more young people to the Soul platform superior.
According to the prospectus submitted by Soul, from 2019 to 2021, Soul achieved rapid growth in user scale. In 2020, Soul MAU increased by 80.7% year-on-year, and DAU increased by 81.0% year-on-year; in 2021, Soul MAU increased by 51.6% year-on-year, and DAU An increase of 55.8%. At the same time, relying on the accumulation of relationship chains and continuously enhancing the immersive experience, Soul has a high user stickiness. In 2021, 59.4% of users will be highly active users (active for at least 15 days per month), and the average daily usage time of daily active users is 45.3 minutes.
Although it has not been commercialized for a long time, Soul has also explored a unique path of innovation in terms of commercialization. At present, Soul's main monetization method is VAS value-added services. On the basis of not affecting the use of products, users can use Soul coins to purchase virtual items and value-added rights, including special avatars, virtual gifts, and the authority to increase recommendation opportunities. Although Soul has always exercised restraint in realizing Soul, the listing prospectus of Soul shows that Soul has achieved rapid growth in revenue while maintaining a relatively high level of gross profit. In 2020, Soul's revenue will increase by 604.3% year-on-year to 500 million; in 2021, Soul's revenue will increase by 157.3% year-on-year to 1.28 billion.
In addition, judging from the prospectus submitted by Soul, in the field of technology, Soul is also strengthening its underlying technical strength. For example, Soul has internally developed Lingxi and NAWA engines. Lingxi is an intelligent recommendation system based on social portraits, and NAWA engine is a proprietary multimedia technology, including key point detection, Avatar creation, and 2D and 3D rendering engines. Through customized 3D Avatars enable users to have a better immersive experience.
At present, the popularity of the social metaverse continues to rise, and the broad application prospects and huge economic benefits attract more and more Internet companies to participate. Soul, which has submitted an application for listing on the Hong Kong stock market, will continue to make efforts on the social metaverse track and increase investment in technologies related to the social metaverse, including extended reality (XR), virtual space and metaverse content creation. Further enhance the user's immersive experience in social gamification, and truly realize the innovation of user experience.