Bilibili does so in two main ways: by offering games where players purchase virtual items to advance to the next level, and access to original and licensed films and series. this Netflix-like business, launched in 2018, now has 14.5m paying subscribers.
B站主要通过两种方式实现转化这一目标:一种是向玩家提供需要氪金购买虚拟物品才能升级的游戏,另一种是提供原版和授权的电影及电视剧。这项类似网飞的业务于2018年推出,目前拥有1450万付费用户。
The share of users who pay for things like in-game accessories and subscriptions has risen from 3.9% in 2018 to 8.0% in 2020. Receipts from these sources helped Bilibili nearly to double its revenues in each of the past three years, to 12bn yuan ($1.7bn) in 2020. It also sells adverts on parts of its platform, but they made up less than fifth of its sales (compared with the vast majority of YouTube’s).
游戏内购和付费订阅等的用户比例从2018年的3.9%上升到2020年的8.0%。这些渠道的收入帮助B站在过去三年中的年收入都近乎翻了一番,到2020年达到120亿元人民币(合17亿美元)。B站也在其平台的部分页面销售广告位,但广告收入只占其销售额的不到五分之一(相比之下,油管的绝大多数销售额都来自广告)。
All this has yet to make any money. Last year Bilibili reported an operating loss of 3bn yuan, double the shortfall in 2019. Profits may remain elusive; the company must invest to maintain a pipeline of addictive games and pays top dollar to outbid big streamers like iQiyi for the rights to popular movies and shows its nascent subscription business needs.
所有这些都还没有让B站赚到钱。去年,B站公布了30亿元的经营亏损,是2019年亏损额的两倍。B站的盈利仍是未知数;该公司必须靠投资来维持令人沉迷的游戏不断上新,并要以高于爱奇艺等大型流媒体的巨额价格竞争热门电影的版权,从而满足其新生的订阅业务需求。
Bilibili’s executives are sanguine. “As our net revenues continue to grow, we do not expect our total content costs as a percentage of total revenue to substantially increase,” they wrote in the prospectus for the firm’s Hong Kong listing. Its share price, down by a third since its February peak, suggests investorswant finally to see some proof.
B站的高管们非常乐观。B站在香港上市时,他们在招股书中写道,“随着净收入持续增长,我们预计总内容成本占总收入的比例不会大幅增加。”该公司的股价自2月份达到峰值后下跌了三分之一,这表明投资者最终希望能看到一些实质证据。