Author丨Pastoral.
Editor丨Nuts.
Cover**丨Unsplash
A market rumor made Zhou Hongyi and 360 feel a "splash of wealth" for no reason.
On February 6, it was reported that 360 decided to take live streaming as one of its annual plans, and Zhou Hongyi, the founder of 360 Group, also wanted to participate.
Some insiders also mentioned that 360 will start live broadcasting, or will follow the model of Dongfang Selection to find potential anchors to bring goods. According to the plan, 360 will first build Zhou Hongyi into a big Internet celebrity, and then learn from Yu Minhong, and then you can use Zhou Hongyi's personal influence to increase traffic and popularity in the 360 live broadcast room.
After Zhou Hongyi announced his entry into live e-commerce, the secondary market also gave very positive feedback, as of February 6**, the share price of A-share 360 rose 955%, and the market value has returned to above 50 billion.
But then on the evening of the same day, Zhou Hongyi issued a ** refutation of rumors, saying that 360 did not have any plans to do live broadcasts, and said frankly"I don't have the ability and potential to do live streaming, and I won't ask myself to do things I'm not good at."
Zhou Hongyi also said that 360 will only do two things well this year, one is the digital security base, and the second is to use the large model technology and capabilities brought by the explosion of artificial intelligence to help many traditional enterprises build their own private large models.
Zhou Hongyi is "addicted" to the Internet celebrity economy
Zhou Hongyi is willing to toss and is also good at creating topics, which can be seen from his creation of 3721 more than 20 years ago, and this characteristic may also be the reason why the outside world speculates that he will enter the live broadcast e-commerce industry.
Following Luo Yonghao's reliance on live broadcast e-commerce to stage the "true return", there have been many entrepreneurs who have led the company to enter the live broadcast e-commerce industry, such as Li Guoqing, the founder of Dangdang.com, and Yu Minhong, the founder of New Oriental, who once scolded Fang Xuan, are now skilled "network salesmen" in the live broadcast room.
Although Zhou Hongyi has not carried out formal live streaming in the past year, on many public occasions, Zhou Hongyi has expressed his strong interest in the Internet celebrity economy and live broadcast e-commerce.
On January 10 this year, Zhou Hongyi, Feng Lun and other entrepreneurs visited the headquarters of Oriental Selection, and listened to Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong share about the Internet celebrity economy and the "traffic password" behind it.
In a public conversation with Fu Sheng, chairman and CEO of Cheetah Mobile, Zhou Hongyi also repeatedly mentioned the Internet celebrity economy"Today's business model has changed, and Dong Yuhui can sell 1600 million things, I will feel that the rules of the game of business have changed, so I think it is really entering the era of Internet celebrities. ”
In addition, Zhou Hongyi also said that the most important thing for Internet celebrities is to have more fans, so he must seize every opportunity to attract fans now.
As of writing, Zhou Hongyi's Douyin fans have reached 36580,000, and the number of Weibo fans has exceeded 11.4 million, and the main content released at present is the **slice of some of his personal public activities.
In fact, whether it is an Internet celebrity or a live broadcast, Zhou Hongyi is no stranger.
Among the older generation of Internet entrepreneurs, Zhou Hongyi has a distinctive personality and dares to "open fire", and has established an "Internet celebrity" personality early, especially his exchange of anger with Lei Jun on Weibo, which has made Zhou Hongyi gain a large number of fans.
At the live broadcast level, 360 has launched the pan-entertainment live broadcast platform Huajiao Live, with monthly active users as high as 28 million, and 360 was also the second largest shareholder of Wang Sicong's Panda Live.
However, most of these live broadcast platforms are mainly shows and games, and there are still certain differences between them and e-commerce live broadcasts in terms of operation logic and traffic monetization.
In addition, with the standardization of the live broadcast e-commerce industry in the past two years, a large number of professional institutions have settled in, which has also made the threshold of this industry higher, and it is no longer the era in the past when you could sell goods only with the traffic halo of the anchor.
In May last year, Zhou Hongyi was a guest in the live broadcast room of Oriental Selection, during which he brought goods for 360's two dash cams, but when asked about the difference between products, the upright Zhou Hongyi bluntly said, "How do I know", and in the end, Yu Minhong brought a text prompt board to relieve Lao Zhou.
Live e-commerce has a limited effect on 360
At present, 360 has a number of product business lines that have entered the Douyin platform, and the highest number of fans is 360 official ***, which already has 1590,000 followers, with a total sales of 2050,000 pieces, ranking 6th on the list of electronic and electrical stores, and the main products sold are PTZ cameras, smart doorbells, etc.
In addition, 360 members, 360 smart devices, 360 OS, 360 auto supplies and other official *** are also carrying out live broadcasts, but judging from the number of fans and live broadcast data, the performance of these official live broadcast rooms is not outstanding.
As the chairman of 360 Group, if Zhou Hongyi bows down to enter the live broadcast to bring goods, it will inevitably bring traffic growth to these live broadcast rooms, but in the overall business plate of 360, relying only on the sales of smart hardware can no longer push 360 to a new peak.
The smart hardware business used to be one of the three strategic businesses of 360 Group, along with Internet advertising services and Internet value-added business, but the performance of these three businesses in the past two years has not been satisfactory.
According to the financial report of 360 in the first half of 2023, the revenue of Internet advertising and service business during the reporting period was 216.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 613%；The revenue of Internet value-added services represented by games is 51.3 billion yuan, down 501%；The smart hardware business achieved an operating income of 86.5 billion yuan, down 519%。
It is worth mentioning that a considerable part of the revenue of 360 smart hardware comes from the purchase of large customers on the B-side, and if you only look at the C-end income, the contribution of smart hardware to the overall revenue of 360 will be less.
Moreover, the difference between Zhou Hongyi and Yu Minhong is that although Lao Zhou's business volume has declined, the industry as a whole is still developing, and Lao Yu is facing a passive decision to transform.
At present, 360 has pinned more hopes on the digital security business, and with the large model becoming a new outlet last year, 360 is also committed to making a difference in related fields.
However, based on more than 360 years of deep accumulation in the field of technology, its intelligent hardware sector is not short of fist products, in last year618 period, 360 in the video doorbell and dash cam two categories to achieve the first brand sales on the whole platform.
Throughout the development process of 360 in smart hardware products, it has also successfully created 360 portable wifi, 360 children's watches and other popular products, and even once had the momentum of fighting with Xiaomi's smart ecology.
However, as the tuyere of smart hardware has passed in recent years, even Xiaomi has begun to transform into a car, and 360 will naturally no longer think about seeking increments from smart hardware.
At present, the only area that is worth investing in is how to organically combine with the existing intelligent hardware with the blessing of large model technology, and then expand new traffic entrances.
As Zhou Hongyi himself said, at present, he only needs to increase more fans and help 360 produce a greater publicity effect, so he has completed the historical mission of an entrepreneur "Internet celebrity".