During the sprint IPO period, Yisou Technology's net profit turned into a loss.
Text: Direct IPO ID: ZhitOnGIPO

Author丨Shao Yangang

Recently, Yisou Technology submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the second time. It was first submitted on February 27 this year. Before 2 broke into the Hong Kong stock market, Yisou Technology had already impacted the capital market several times. According to reports, Yisou Technology planned to go to the NYSE for an IPO in 2014, but the application was withdrawn after 2018. Meanwhile, in 2017, Yisou Technology was listed on the New Third Board and was delisted from the New Third Board in June 2019. At the time of termination of listing, the total market value was 1.2 billion yuan. In September 2019, Yisou Technology submitted a prospectus for the Science and Technology Innovation Board. After two rounds of inquiries, it voluntarily withdrew its application in 2020, and now it has moved to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As a first-generation Internet company, Yisou Technology was founded in 2005 and is committed to applying various data and human connection scenarios based on artificial intelligence recommendation technology. The company uses the proprietary intelligent recommendation engine Yisou recommendation engine to collect, analyze, match, or predict the needs of users to calculate customer needs, and provide various data such as digital reading, digital marketing, online games, and other digital content. In the early days of its establishment, Yisou Technology started with mobile search engines. At the time, its main competitors included Baidu and Google. As a technology company that was once viewed by the market as being in the same tier as Baidu, the company's search business gradually weakened. According to the prospectus, in 2020, 2021, 2022 and the first five months of 2023, Yisou Technology's annual revenue was 4.100.9 billion yuan, 4.331.1 billion yuan, 4.564.1 billion yuan, and 1,984 billion yuan, respectively. The company's overall revenue for the year was 31.355 million yuan, 5.01 million yuan, 444.48 million yuan, and 19374 million yuan, respectively. In the first five months of 2023, Yisou Technology changed from profit to loss. Furthermore, in 2020, 2021, 2022, and the first five months of 2023, Yisou Technology's annual gross margin also declined, at 52.2%, 48.2%, 52.3%, and 47.4%, respectively. Today, Yisou Technology has 4 business lines, namely digital reading platform services, digital marketing services, online game distribution services, and other digital content services, but its revenue sources are digital reading recommendation services and digital marketing services. According to the prospectus, in 2021, the average number of monthly active users of the Yisou Novel App was about 18.4 million, ranking fifth in the Chinese digital reading market. Among the top ten apps in the Chinese digital reading market in 2021 (in terms of average monthly active users), the Yisou Novel App ranked fourth with an average daily usage time of 98 minutes in 2021. As of May 31, 2023, the total number of registered users of the Yisou series of reading apps was 44 million. Despite shrinking performance, Yisou Technology was once favored by capital. According to Tianyancha information, between 2006 and 2019, Yisou Technology carried out 11 rounds of financing. According to the prospectus, before the IPO, SoftBank, Shanghai Shanda, and Tianjin Zhonghao were all shareholders of the company, holding 8.84%, 6.27%, and 6.66% of the shares respectively. Time has passed, and the lack of innovation has also become a hot topic of discussion for Yisou Technology. Under the generative AI trend, Yisou Technology is also keeping up with the trend. According to the prospectus, like other generative artificial intelligence tools, ChatGPT is a branch of AIGC (AI Generated Content, AI-Generated Content), and AIGC can bring about fundamental changes in content creation. The company has accumulated many years of R&D experience in the application of artificial intelligence technology, and will use artificial intelligence technology to create literary works. Currently, Yisou Technology has successfully applied the Yisou artificial intelligence recommendation engine to four application scenarios, including digital reading recommendation services, digital marketing services, online game distribution services, and other digital content services. However, after hitting the AIGC hotspot, it is still unknown whether it will actually be the main force for the company's business growth. After hitting the capital market several times to no avail, can Yisou Technology successfully submit its second submission to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange?

(Source of the first picture: screenshot from the official website)

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