On April 3, HUYA Inc. announced that Linen Investment Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent, sent a notice to HUYA Inc. and JOYY Inc Group that it had exercised its equity and bought 16523819 HUYA Inc. Class B common shares at a purchase price of US $262.6 million. Tencent became HUYA Inc. 's largest shareholder after the transaction was completed, and the voting right was increased to 50.1%. Tencent holds 37.2% of DouYu International Holdings Limited, making him the largest shareholder of the company.

HUYA Inc. rose nearly 10% before the trading due to the news of Tencent's official holding, closed down 6.00%, opened high and left low.

A deep earthquake is about to be staged in the game broadcast world:It has been rumored in the industry for a long time that Tencent intends to acquire HUYA Inc., and then integrate HUYA Inc., DouYu International Holdings Limited and e-sports Penguin, so as to avoid the waste of resources and disorderly competition among the three, and create a "TME" giant belonging to the live game industry.

Holding the absolute voice of the game live broadcast industry with strategic synergy is very important for Tencent, who accounts for 1/3 of the game revenue for the whole year. In the long run, it can also defend against the constant byte beating in the game field.

Tencent's "takes all" and "Battle of Tiger" ended with a merger.

From poaching anchors to public fights for "the first share of live games" and core data competition, the "Tiger struggle" between HUYA Inc. and DouYu International Holdings Limited for many years has been staged regularly and intensified.

After breaking out of the thousand broadcast warDouYu International Holdings Limited and HUYA Inc., two major head platforms with similar daily active users, mass and revenue structure, began hand-to-hand combat for a long time.. In 2017, DouYu International Holdings Limited poached HUYA Inc. Arena of Valor Anchor Hai Shi, PUBG Anchor she GE, Penguin e-sports Zhang Daxian and other anchors. HUYA Inc. poached DouYu International Holdings Limited Arena of Valor Anchor Gu Ying, and then stole PUBG anchors Wei Shen, SY and other major anchors to pay 30 million liquidated damages for Wei Shen. since then, in 2018, the Yuwan Trade Union, one of HUYA Inc. 's exclusive cooperative trade unions, and more than 400 anchors said they had collectively changed jobs to DouYu International Holdings Limited due to unpaid wages.

In August 2018, according to Weibo Corp blogger @ anchor embarrassing revelations, a public relations company was hired by HUYA Inc. Live to instruct it to discredit anchors on other platforms. HUYA Inc. official Weibo claimed to resist the rumors and will pursue it to the end. Then DouYu International Holdings Limited published a paper to question the other party's hacking of public relations. Then HUYA Inc. responded to "people who can't wake up and pretend to be asleep" with a research report on "online black public relations" from Jinan University, while DouYu International Holdings Limited said that the data version had been revised.

On March 7, 2018, HUYA Inc. Live announced the launch of IPO to the United States, which was officially listed in May, winning the first game in the battle for "Game Live first share". The day after HUYA Inc. announced the launch of IPO to the United States, DouYu International Holdings Limited announced that he had received an exclusive financing of US $630 million from Tencent, while in March 2018, Tencent made an exclusive investment of US $460 million in HUYA Inc. 's round B financing, becoming HUYA Inc. 's second largest shareholder.

Compared with HUYA Inc., DouYu International Holdings Limited's road to IPO is ill-fated. DouYu International Holdings Limited was revealed to be interested in IPO in 2016. During the period from 2016 to 2019, news of the listing was reported several times, and the location was repeatedly changed from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange, and the time was repeatedly delayed. In July 2019, DouYu International Holdings Limited finally went public, but then ushered in a break.

The latest financial report shows that:In the Q4 quarter of 2019, HUYA Inc. LVB MAU and mobile MAU were 150 million and 61.6 million respectively, an increase of 28.8% and 21.5% respectively over the same period last year. DouYu International Holdings Limited's average MAU and mobile MAU in the fourth quarter were 165.8 million and 54.4 million, up 8.0% and 29.3% from the same period last year. The two are far ahead in terms of market penetration, but the struggle between them is easy to lead to internal friction.

Having experienced "dark moments" such as the blocking of Tiger Yali, DouYu International Holdings Limited, Chen Yifa and Lu Benwei, the regulatory risk of the live broadcast platform is increasingly high, and "de-head anchor dependence" has become a proposition that must be answered. With the national live broadcast and the collapse of Panda TV, the live broadcast industry is speeding up the reshuffle.

With the arrival of e-commerce live streaming and cloud games this yearRecently, DouYu International Holdings Limited also announced that he would add cloud games and join the e-commerce live broadcast.. There are all signs that:The live broadcast industry is ending the chaos of disorderly competition and entering a 2.0 era in which the ecology tends to be more benign and diversified.。

With Tencent increasing his holdings to HUYA Inc. and DouYu International Holdings Limited of the first echelon, the will of the giant eventually became the key to ending the "Tiger struggle".

Tencent plans to integrate the two platforms and layout the game live broadcast empire for a long time. In 2015, Tencent tried to promote the merger of DouYu International Holdings Limited and Dragonball, which he invested in, but failed. According to the exclusive knowledge of late LatePost in September last year, 2019Tencent IEG has set up a new department, the Game Live Business Department. One of the main tasks is to coordinate DouYu International Holdings Limited, HUYA Inc. and e-sports, in an attempt to balance the competition among the three anchors and control the overall consumption.。

Tencent officially released the anchor support plan in August 2019. The first phase of the game is aimed at three major platforms: DouYu International Holdings Limited Live, HUYA Inc. Live and Penguin e-sports. In addition, personnel changes have become a foreshadowing for the merger of the two platforms: Tianyan data show that since December 2019, DouYu International Holdings Limited founder Chen Shaojie has successively stepped down as the legal representative of Wuhan DouYu International Holdings Limited Yule Network Technology Co., Ltd., Wuhan DouYu International Holdings Limited Network Live Technology Co., Ltd., and other enterprises. Prior to the change in the personnel appointment of DouYu International Holdings Limited's board of directors, after the completion of the holding transaction, a total of 4 Tencent employees joined HUYA Inc. 's board of directors.

When he received Tencent's $460 million round B strategic financing in 2018, HUYA Inc. announced a clause:Tencent has the right to buy HUYA Inc. 's additional shares at the fair market price between March 8, 2020 and March 8, 2021, reaching 50.1 per cent of the voting rights.Recently, Tencent and HUYA Inc. are based on this. Before 2020, HUYA Inc. executives visited Tencent Interactive Entertainment executives to discuss post-merger management issues, according to people familiar with the matter. Tencent has currently completed all-round due diligence on HUYA Inc. before the merger and acquisition. At present, the epidemic has affected the progress of mergers and acquisitions.

Also with Tencent's financing background, Tencent took the lead in choosing HUYA Inc., DouYu International Holdings Limited, rather than Kuaishou Technology and Bilibili Inc., who broadcast live games, not only because of the "difficulty of financing and mergers and acquisitions", but also because of "possibility" and "reality". Tencent and Kuaishou Technology tried to set up a joint venture with Kuaishou Technology in September last year, mainly in games, and the product form has not yet been determined, which may include live streaming, short videos or communities, but has since failed, according to later LatePost.

In addition, although Kuaishou Technology has unparalleled traffic advantages as a pan-entertainment platform-public data show that by the end of November 2019, the number of daily active users of Kuaishou Technology game live streaming has reached 51 million, and the daily active users of game short videos have reached 77 million. But its professionalism, e-sports copyright content and anchor ecology, and even the core users' emotional stickiness and willingness to pay are still less than Tiger: DouYu International Holdings Limited and HUYA Inc. have completed the deep binding with the head anchor According to Xiao Hulu, among the top 1000 Q1-Q2 anchors in 2019, HUYA Inc. and DouYu International Holdings Limited accounted for 60%, and Kuaishou Technology accounted for 15%. Bilibili Inc. won the three-year copyright of the LOL Finals by throwing 800 million yuan, but HUYA Inc. is the only live broadcast platform in the industry that combines the rights of the four major leagues.

Review the opportunities and variables of the live game track

"the problem of the merger of the two mainly depends on the decision of Tencent, the major shareholder. DouYu International Holdings Limited founder Chen Shaojie previously said on the 2019 Q3 earnings call. As two companies that have already listed independently in US stocks, the merger of DouYu International Holdings Limited and HUYA Inc. will face many difficulties, including the era of JOYY Inc, another shareholder of HUYA Inc. and a listed company. Assuming that multiple obstacles such as architecture, management team, and corporate culture can be overcome eventually, the merged "Tiger" can further optimize resource integration, and will face Bilibili Inc. and Kuaishou Technology's scramble for head anchors, e-sports copyrights, and medium-and long-tail users.

And "Tiger" will also be Tencent monopoly downstream distribution channels, blocking byte beat to attack their own game hinterland of the important town. From the Oasis plan to the creation of a team and the establishment of a game company, Byte Jump's ambition in the game has been very obvious, and he has gone to court with Tencent many times because of live game copyright infringement. And Douyin users and game users also have a considerable degree of overlap. According to App Growing's report "Market Analysis of Mobile Game purchases in February 2019", Jinri Toutiao accounts for 47.1% of mobile games. This year's Spring Festival, the headline is a small test in the field of light games, TOP 10, free games list, byte jump release / agent games accounted for 6.

So, in the era of industry integration, where are the opportunities and challenges of the game live track? The epidemic has brought a traffic dividend to the live broadcast platform. According to HUYA Inc. 's financial report, the conference call confirmed that "the mobile MAU in the first quarter of 2020 may exceed a new high of more than 70 million, and the usage time of users will also increase." It is reported that at most 3000 new live rooms have been added to DouYu International Holdings Limited's online education channel every day, a seven-fold increase from the previous month. But at the same time, the economic downturn caused by the epidemic and the weakening of consumer confidence have made stock prices and mergers and acquisitions less clear.

5G commercial full landing, combined with VR, AR technology, may bring new opportunities for the game live broadcast platform and e-sports industry, while compared to "at least two or three years to mature", the major platforms are still in the exploration and testing stage of cloud games, from winning the IG championship to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Affairs bringing "electronic athlete" into the official career, various localities issued policies to encourage e-sports to develop and build the city of e-sports. E-sports 's professionalization is bringing intuitive growth dividends to organizers, clubs and live games as a downstream distribution platform.

According to the Global e-sports Market report released by NEWZOO, the total revenue of e-sports in 2020 is expected to reach 1.1 billion US dollars, an annual growth rate of 15.7%. At the same time, the Chinese market currently accounts for the largest share of global e-sports revenue, accounting for 35.0% of global total revenue. E-sports event has produced a stable and growing traffic entrance, and the live broadcast platform has realized the online demand for watching the game, and provides exports for customized content, derived pan-entertainment live streaming, and so on. E-sports will be the most important growth point for Tiger.

Whether it is HUYA Inc. or DouYu International Holdings Limited, the current revenue structure tends to be single, and multiple commercial models such as paid subscriptions may be constantly explored in the future. After the live broadcast industry tends to be standardized, the platform regulatory risk still exists for a long time.