After replacing CEO, Kwai seems to have not yet passed the dangerous period.
Recently, Kwai Chung netizens broke the news that the layoffs were 30%, and the international layoffs 30% had already begun. Earlier, micro-blog users also broke the news that Kwai would persuade low performance employees in December. For the two hearsay, the Kwai Fu official did not respond to the deadline.
Although Internet Co has been a Kwai Fu layoff at the end of the year, according to the usual practice, the annual layoffs as a summing up strategic adjustment are usually started from the marginal business. In the first place, the fast hand has taken the lead in the international business of key projects.
01. Pressure of the first strand of short video
Indeed, as the pioneer of short video industry and the rate of landing in capital market in early 2021, Kwai is worthy of the title of "short video first stock". But Kwai tiktok is always in the "slow" philosophy, and it is also an indisputable fact that the fast hand is under pressure in the competition with the jitter.
First, tiktok has been thrown behind Kwai in the daily life. The latest Kwai tiktok shows that the daily activity of the quiver is over 600 million, while that of the fast hand is only 320 million.
Even faster Kwai is worried that about 300 million of the daily life seems to have hit the ceiling. According to the results of the financial report, Q3, Kwai Chi, reached 272 million in 2020, and Q3 in 2021, which is no more than 320 million, and no more than 50% growth over the previous year.
The reason for this is mainly because the natural traffic of mobile Internet has peaked. According to the 2021 China Mobile Internet autumn report released by Quest mobile, as of September 2021, China's mobile Internet had 1.167 billion monthly active users. As a comparison, in the same period of 2019, this number reached 1.133 billion.
Since natural flow has been exhausted, Kwai can do it naturally from the competitors' mouth. Kwai Sheng Securities Research Institute data show that in 2018~2021, tiktok and fast user coincidence increased from 10.3% to 60%, and has been on the rise.
However, Kwai Kwai paid a high price for it. The results showed that the average cost of the fast passenger per capita was 2019 yuan, Q1 in 2020 and 168 yuan in 2021, 172 yuan in 2020 and 485.8 yuan respectively. In 2021, Q3 Kwai's sales and marketing expenses rose from 6 billion 100 million yuan in the same period last year to 11 billion yuan, an increase of 80.3% over the same period last year.
According to the results of the report, Q1 in 2021, Kwai Fu's daily life was 295 million, after a quarter, this figure dropped to 293 million. From this perspective, Q3 in 2021, Kwai Chung day broke 300 million, and "burn money" seems to have direct links.
The initiator of evil Kwai Kwai's new atmosphere has also experienced subtle changes this year. After the departure of his predecessor, CEO, Kwai Chung, a media player wrote that the "inner combat" drama was inside the fast hand and the originator directed at Su Hua and Cheng Yi.
02. Pain behind layoffs
Of course, in the background of the white hot competition in China, the Kwai Fu did not forget to seek overseas market opportunities just like cheetah mobile ten years ago.
As early as 2017, Kwai went to the international short video application Kwai in Vietnam and Malaysia.
But then Kwai's strategy in the overseas market was swaying.
Kwai Chee Kwai Kwai, who was the chief marketing officer of the former cheetah Mobile Corporation, won the good results in the strategy of burning money. But then the CEO, who was a fast hand, stopped the strategy. But with the departure of Liu Xinhua in December 2018, the first stage internationalization strategy of the fast hand was also abandoned.
Kwai Kwai started with broken halberds defeat in 2019, and started to launch a Snack Video in Southeast Asia. However, because the focus of the fast hand was at home, the plan was to attack 300 million DAU before the Spring Festival in 2020, and also let the second international strategy of TikTok go down in the sand.
With the victory of the Kwai TSE "K3 campaign" in the spring of 2020, its internationalization strategy was once again put on the agenda. For example, in 2020, we saw Kwai's launch of Kwai for the Middle East and South America, Zynn for the North American market and SnackVideo for Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the three products did not bring three bright data, but serious internal friction and vicious competition. No sooner than not, in the summer of 2021, Kwai Kwai announced the merger of Kwai and Snack Video, and Kwai took the lead in the battle for the only overseas product.
Meanwhile, Kwai is constantly upgrading its research and development input. Q3's earnings report showed that Kwai's R & D expenditure reached 4 billion 200 million yuan, up 126% compared to 1 billion 900 million yuan last year. Insiders revealed that in the first half of 2021, Kwai has spent more than 5 billion 500 million yuan in overseas markets.
In response, after the Q3 earnings report, Kwai also reluctantly said: "(R & D investment is high) is mainly due to continue to invest in big data and other advanced technology and increase R & D personnel and related share based pay expenses, resulting in increased employee benefits expenses."
But shilly Shally, Kwai Kwai won't give enough time to trial and error. When the fast hand hesitates, the byte pulsation has been completed.
Public information shows Kwai Chung's international version of Tiktok has broken 1 billion in the month of September 2021, and the monthly activity of the tiktok Kwai is around 150 million.
From this point of view, Kwai Kwai layoffs took the lead in the international business departments, and the biggest audience of employees with "increased employee benefits" was "1 million yuan or more".
03. The winter of the Internet industry has come
In fact, the experience of Kwai Fu in late 2021 is actually a typical epitome of the Internet industry.
Once upon a time, at the beginning of the birth of mobile Internet, with the continuous entry of capital, many outlets were born. According to the enterprise survey data, in 2014, the financing of the Internet track rose suddenly, with a year-on-year increase of 600%. By 2018, the financing of the whole Internet industry exceeded 600 billion.
At the same time, the demand gap for experienced engineers even reached 100:1. Some media once reported that he often went to Alibaba and Tencent to dig people with double salary.
However, with the disappearance of Internet dividends, intensified competition, epidemic and other factors. After 2019, the Internet track began to cool down gradually. According to the data of enterprise investigation, in 2020, the financing scale of the Internet industry was only 184.052 billion, shrinking by more than 70% compared with the high point in 2018.
Meanwhile, according to the data released by 51job, the total number of school recruitment of Internet companies in 2022 fell by 15% - 20% year-on-year, and the salary did not increase significantly. In contrast, as a representative of the traditional economy, the total number of school enrollment in the automotive industry still has an increase of 10% - 15%.
In fact, in the context of Kwai Tong's downside, other Internet platforms are also having a hard time.
China business reported that iqiyi was also planning to start layoffs in December 2021, with a layoff ratio of 20% to 40%.
Even the tiktok of the short video field is not able to be Kwai Fu. Shanghai Securities News reported that domestic advertising revenue has stagnated since the second half of 2021. This is the first time since the commercialization of byte beat in 2013. Among them, besides the vibrant advertising revenue growth, the other big tiktok product of the byte jumping is even at the edge of loss today.
However, for Kwai Kwai, the good thing is that in 2021, Q3's advertising revenue reached 10 billion 900 million yuan, up 76.5% over the same period last year, far exceeding the 7 billion 700 million yuan of live broadcast, instead of direct broadcast, which has become the most important part of the fast turnover. This means that Kwai can finally get rid of the "hijacking" of the "big king" anchors.
But after all, Q3 Kwai's net loss reached 4 billion 800 million yuan, and net loss rate was 23.5%, up 400% from the same period last year. Therefore, layoffs are undoubtedly the most effective and direct way to restore Kwai's confidence in the capital market at this stage.
Kwai tiktok, however, is also the most urgent task to find new growth curve under the pressure of shaking.
This article is from the official account of WeChat public, ID:spiral_lab, which is authorized by the 36 krypton.
