A few days ago, Bilibili released its financial report for the third quarter of 2023. According to the financial report, the daily active users of bilibili exceeded 100 million in the third quarter, reaching 102.8 billion. Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Bilibili, made a detailed interpretation of this phenomenon in the first meeting after the release of the third quarterly report.
By the end of the third quarter, the number of bilibili members reached 21.1 million. More than 80% of them are annual subscriptions or auto-renewing users. In September this year, bilibili held a press conference for national animation works for the sixth consecutive year, announcing 68 domestic works, and announced that it would launch "Chinese Strange Tan Season 2", "Little Monster's Summer" big movie and other works, "The Legend of Mortal Immortals New Year", and the original animated short film collection "Capsule Project Season 2" have been launched recently.
In terms of film and television content layout, bilibili "Guarding the Liberation West 4" and "Informal Talks Season 8" returned in the third quarter. The exclusive drama still maintains a high reputation, and the Taiwanese drama "Lifetime", which was launched in September, has a Douban score of 88 points, plus last year's "The Algorithm of Justice", "Imitation Criminal", etc., which was broadcast in the first half of the year, bilibili gradually expanded the vertical track of new Taiwanese dramas. In terms of creator ecology, the average number of daily active UP owners of Bilibili increased by 21% year-on-year, and the number of UP owners with more than 10,000 fans increased by 36% year-on-yearThe average number of monthly submissions increased by 37% year-on-year to 21 million.
Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Bilibili, said at the first meeting after the release of the third quarterly report that to achieve user growth, Bilibili emphasizes more on making good products than increasing investment in customer acquisition. Reflected in the data, the total marketing cost of bilibili in the first three quarters of this year was 27900 million, a decrease of 24% compared with last year.
In the process of market launch, we will strictly assess ROI to ensure that the efficiency of market launch is positive," Chen Rui emphasized, "Increase gross profit, reduce losses, and maintain growth" The three points must be achieved at the same time, and the first two points will not be sacrificed to ensure user growth.
In the past two years, the market and investors' expectations for Internet platforms have gradually shifted from the scale of users to the ability to make money. Chen Rui explained that Bilibili still emphasizes the scale of users, on the one hand, because the number of users can cultivate a larger group of creators and a richer content ecology. On the other hand, the number of users is the basis for the commercialization of the Internet platform, and the growth of bilibili's advertising and live broadcast revenue** has grown in tandem with the scale of bilibili users.
After the release of the financial report, Bank of America** released a research report saying that Bilibili continues to control operating costs and plans to reduce the overall number of employees by the end of this year, believing that there is room to cut marketing expenses while the user growth trend remains resilient. Considering the macroeconomic slowdown and its gaming business remains weak, BofA lowered Bilibili's FY2023-2025 earnings** by 5% to 12% and lowered its price target to HK$131 from HK$155, reiterating its "** rating."
During the quarter, under the leadership of Rui Chen, Chairman and CEO of Bilibili, Bilibili achieved positive operating cash flow and was on track to achieve its profitability target. Not only has the commercialization capability and operational efficiency been significantly improved, but it has also created more value for users, creators, and partners.