Source of this article: time Finance author: Xu Xiaoqian

As the new consumer track becomes more and more inward, spiritual consumption is constantly upgrading. Data from third-party platforms show that Generation Z has a comprehensive demand for spiritual consumption in terms of hard core knowledge, workplace experience, financial management and investment. As Internet aborigines, they are more likely to find "reliable answers" with the help of emerging channels.

Recently, the first Himalayan Singles' Day event was unveiled with the theme of "better Life inside and outside". The anchors in the joint station explored new models such as live broadcast with goods and online shop opening, so that users can achieve a bumper harvest of both mental and material.

Just two months ago, the Himalayas officially changed slogan to "spiritual food for every day". In the nine years since its establishment, the Himalayas have established a rich and diverse content ecology, and gradually infiltrated into the multiple scenes of users, and its companionship function can not be replaced by other media.

As a popular audio sharing platform for users, Himalayas have steadily stepped on the pace of the market, from motivating platform creators, enriching IP reservoirs to expanding application scenarios, Himalayas have told sound stories.

146 minutes a day to fill the "spiritual food" of life.

Huang Ting, a post-1995 generation, is a long-term paid member of the Himalayas and a heavy fan of audio novels. "compared with the adaptation of film and television, the restoration of the novel by audio works is more extreme." Huang Ting enjoys the sound of 30 minutes before going to bed more than the instant pleasure brought by a short video, which can calm down workers who are busy all day.

Statistics show that there are more than 200 million single adults in China, of which 77 million live alone, and the post-90s generation is an important part of them. The companionship attribute of the Himalayas is just right for the use and needs of post-90s single young people.

In the first half of 2021, Himalayan revenue was 2.51 billion yuan, up 55.5 percent from the same period last year, and the number of monthly active users reached 262 million, an increase of 25.7 percent over the same period last year.

The scale and duration of users are often important factors in evaluating the ecology of audio platforms. In the first quarter of 2021, the number of Himalayan mobile users reached 13.9 million, with a payment rate of 13.3%, and the average user time was 146minutes. It accounts for about 70.9% of the total listening time of mobile users of all online audio platforms in China.

Behind the high payment rate and high user stickiness is a benign content ecology. Himalayas have PGC, PUGC and UGC to build a pyramid content supply model. Diversified producers provide a large amount of content for the Himalayas, giving rise to a number of topics, such as school season, workplace season, science fiction season, suspense season, health season, and so on, covering the preferences of listeners of all ages and circles.

In the past two years, suspense themes have exploded in social circles, and "Secret Corner" and "Silent Truth" have become phenomenal works of that year. The Himalayas focused on creating their own brand "White Night Theater", launched the "Octagonal Pavilion riddle" sound drama, set off a carnival of suspense lovers, and brought a sound-led sensory journey.

In fact, the White Night Theater has formed a powerful IP matrix, gathering a number of fine vocal dramas with suspense reasoning themes, such as Ma Boyong's "15 days of Beijing and Beijing", Cai Jun's "the 19th floor of Hell" and Zijin Chen's crime comedy "low IQ Crime". For Himalayas, the 13.3% payment rate is just the beginning, rich and diverse content and IP will further seize the minds of users, and the consumer map built on this basis will also form a virtuous circle.

Millions of anchors find a sense of belonging and build a content ecological moat

After years of precipitation, the Himalayas have built a deep content ecological moat, with more than 290 million audio tracks and 98 categories, with a total content duration of 2.1 billion minutes and a wide range of audio content from 100 genres. In 2020, the platform has more than 5.2 million active content creators.

For creators, Himalayas are both hotbeds and mines. According to time Finance, the current operating costs of Himalayas include content sharing fees, copyright licensing, payment processing fees, Internet equipment procurement and so on. According to its prospectus, the revenue paid by Himalayas to content creators and contractors reached 1.293 billion yuan in 2020, accounting for about 31.7% of total revenue.

In the long run, a relatively large share of sharing fees and copyright fees is also a necessary part of the healthy development of content ecology: the platform needs to include a large number of high-quality copyright and IP, and constantly enrich the content supply of creators, so as to further increase the stickiness and scale of users. In particular, after the phenomenal works are out of the circle, the platform will naturally accept some new users into the traffic pool, and the Himalayas already have the cornerstone for creating quality content-copyright and creators.

The nine-year development history of the Himalayas is also the growth history of platform anchors. the station has trained a number of professional anchors, most of whom break into the audio world by virtue of their sensitivity and love for sound, and are pleasantly surprised to gain millions of fans and wealth and freedom. It is understood that the head anchors of audio book anchors such as "Voice Purple skirt" and "Magic Sakura" on the Himalayan platform earn millions of dollars a month.

In order to continue to broaden the boundaries of commercialization, podcasts have become a new contact point for Himalayan content operations. At present, many celebrities, celebrities, stars and opinion leaders have settled in the Himalayas to open personal podcasts, such as writers Xu Zhiyuan, Liu Xinwu, doctor Tao Yong, scholar Ma Jiahui, science popularization V thin camel, sports commentator Yang Yi, Zhan Jun and other elites in various fields. Well-known media organizations such as the Beijing News, Guoshang.com, Zhanxiang, Sports Weekly and Southern Wind Window have also taken advantage of the podcast to start a new attempt at content creation.

On the other hand, the value of the Himalayas is recognized by more and more advertisers. In the first half of 2021, well-known brands in the fields of operators, automobile, finance, 3C, medicine, Internet, e-commerce, medicine and games have cooperated with Himalayas one after another.

In 2014, Dou Chao, who transformed from car sales, created the podcast, which tells the story of people and cars in the way of a talk show. Over the past seven years, it has received more than 760 million broadcasts and an average of more than one million per episode.

With the blessing of high-quality content and broadcast volume, "hundred cars all say" can receive four or five ads during the peak season, and the annual revenue of advertising alone is hundreds of thousands of yuan. Podcasts are more closely connected with brands to achieve sustainable revenue growth.

"Zero Shaw Man" used to be a drama actor, through the happy broadcast education "Star-making Project" gradually grew into a Himalayan S-level audio book anchor. "the method of playing audio with goods is relatively new, and the new method of playing can also bring new benefits." Because of the large number of female fans, during the Himalayan Singles Day holiday, he also tried to bring snacks, daily necessities and skin care products to recommend to fans through live streaming and fan groups. "I bought a lot of food myself this time. Haha!"

This is a win-win situation, Himalayas continue to empower content producers, and podcasts that have accumulated a certain number of fans and broadcasts can seek rich commercial models to better integrate content producers into the platform environment.

IoT to reach a broader application scenario

In fact, not only in the field of content creation, but also in the Internet of things scene, the Himalayas still give a whole new imagination.

With the promotion and application of the Internet of things and 5G technology, smart wearable devices and vehicle devices can be used as carriers of audio content, especially when mobile Internet traffic reaches its peak. Himalayas have explored a broader path of user growth.

Since 2017, Himalaya has successively launched Xiaoya smart speakers, Xiaoya AI real wireless headphones and children's intelligent hardware products-good habit early education machine, which has successfully opened up the territory of intelligent hardware.

According to the latest data from Ai Media Consulting, the number of online audio users in China has maintained a continuous growth trend, and the number of online audio users is expected to reach 690 million by 2022. Hot knowledge predicts that the domestic online audio penetration rate is expected to reach 39% in 2025, which means that there is still room for imagination in the size of users in the Himalayas.

In fact, the ecological layout of the Himalayas can be summarized into two directions: IoT (Internet of things) and V2X. Among them, the car scene is the new battlefield that today's audio platform is chasing. V2X (vehicle to everything), that is, the exchange of information between the car and the outside world. From smart wearable devices to cars to smart home appliances, the Himalayas are steadily embedded in users' diverse life scenarios.

In terms of in-vehicle smart terminals, Himalaya holds hands with a number of head car brands. Tesla, Inc. China, GM, SAIC, Geely, BYD, NIO Inc. Automobile, Li Auto Inc. and so on are all on the cooperation list to provide massive audio services for car owners.

In terms of smart terminals for home use, Himalayas have reached cooperation with BABA, XIAOMI, Baidu, Inc., Tencent, Huawei, Midea and other head enterprises to extensively connect content ecology with hardware products.

Today, a series of Himalayan initiatives have seen results. Of the 260 million monthly active users in the entire scenario, 111 million come from the mobile side, while the Internet of things and third-party platforms have 151 million monthly active users, accounting for 58 per cent of the total monthly active users.

Once the audio content can connect a wide range of application scenarios, the potential energy from IoT will be further released.