Increase the investment in IP derivatives, can bilibili reverse the loss situation?
Nov 2, IP derivatives integrated service Imani Animation announced that it has received nearly 50 million yuan in round B financing, and the investor behind it is bilibili.
original title: aim at IP derivatives bilibili wants to break the profit bottleneck
in view of the potential market space in the field of IP derivatives, there are not a few companies competing for this layout, and Bilibili (hereinafter referred to as "bilibili") is one of them. On November 2, IP derivatives integrated service Iman Animation announced that it had received nearly 50 million yuan in round B financing, and the investor behind it was bilibili. Bilibili, who was exposed a few days ago or will be in the United States IPO next year, has actually been in a state of loss for a long time in recent years. in order to change this situation, bilibili continues to explore a variety of commercial ways to make a profit, among which IP operations and derivatives are also one of bilibili's favorite areas. So, can constantly overweight IP derivatives become a key step for bilibili to make a profit?
Public information shows that Ai Animation, founded in 2010, became the general agent of Taiwan animation giant kapok in the mainland in the early days of its establishment. Up to now, the company has reached cooperation with Japanese GOODSMILE COMPANY, evil spirit, American TURNER and other brands, and has accumulated more than 100 IP resources, including "full-time master", "Naruto" and so on. According to Ai Animation's planning, after obtaining the B round of financing, the funds will be used for areas such as brand promotion, among which, closer cooperation with bilibili in the field of genuine derivatives, including investment in the animation IP production committee and multi-faceted cooperation in offline activities are also being planned.
as a platform for gathering a large number of second-dimensional users, bilibili has formed a certain influence in the industry, but bilibili's road of commercialization is not smooth. Not only founder Xu Yi has publicly said that bilibili has been in a state of loss, in addition, bilibili Chairman Chen Rui also revealed at the 2016 annual meeting that bilibili achieved an income of 730 million yuan in 2016, but expenditure was more than 1 billion yuan.
in order to change the loss situation, bilibili has also made many attempts, such as introducing paid members, patch advertising, customized travel business, etc., but the actual results are not entirely satisfactory, especially patch advertising. As many users gathered bilibili is fond of no advertising setting, so post advertising even if the video site to obtain an important source of income, but in bilibili after the emergence of a lot of protest.
at the same time, bilibili also made dozens of investments around Quan Yuan through capital operation, among which the field of IP operation and derivatives is also one of bilibili's favorite areas. in addition to this Ai manga, he also invested in companies such as AC, a model toy website around animation.
"like Marvel superheroes, from the adaptation of comics into movies to the annual income of 1 billion US dollars from related series of derivatives, we can see that there is still a big gap in domestic animation derivatives. Bilibili's layout of derivatives around the two-dimensional development is also in line with the trend from the perspective of market space," said Xu Shan, an investment analyst.
observing the Amani animation that bilibili chose to invest this time, we can find that at present, the company has covered both online and offline channels, not only with direct stores and franchise stores on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, but also with cooperative stores and self-run surrounding stores offline, and participate in 100 exhibitions every year. In addition, Ai Animation has expanded the commodity SKU from daily department stores, stationery, clothing, drawbar boxes and other soft periphery to hard periphery such as hands-on, toys, IP props and so on.
Xu Shan believes that just from the action of bilibili investing in Imani animation, it belongs to the nature of investment. If bilibili wants to develop derivatives into one of the main sources of income of the company and help the company make a profit, it is more at the business level. The development and linkage of the company's internal business, as well as the business linkage with the investment company, of course, it is more important to design products that meet the market demand. Behind this is the grasp of IP content, market pre-fine research, product category design, sales and operation methods and channels and other links, all need to be carefully considered.
Edit: mary