Summary:
Market: Status Quo of China’s Enterprise Live Streaming Service Market
Scale: After more than ten years of development, the commercial client market fully embraced enterprise live streaming in 2020. Driven by the pandemic, China’s enterprise live streaming market has entered a stage of rapid development, with a market size of nearly 4 billion yuan.
Service providers: relying on their own existing advantages, the leading enterprise live streaming service providers accelerate the construction of competition barriers while gaining a firm foothold in the market, and go hand in hand with vertical deep cultivation and horizontal expansion.
Trend: China’s corporate live streaming service market development and changes
On the demand side, the enthusiasm of individual users for live streaming has pushed more Chinese companies to actively explore live streaming. Enterprise live streaming service providers are the core role that enables companies to realize online shopping, education, events and other scenarios; after a year of practice and trial and error, the commercial user-end enterprises in China also have a clearer understanding of the value of enterprise live streaming, and their plans for future live streaming tend to be rational
On the supply side, upstream cloud vendors are leading the construction of a SaaS ecosystem, promoting communication and collaboration between enterprise live streaming and other SaaS service providers, and jointly exploring how to better serve commercial user-end enterprises; midstream enterprise live streaming service providers have completed product + solutions + continuous upgrade of services
Outlook: Development Trend of China’s Enterprise Live Streaming Market
At the enterprise level, as the solutions of service providers mature, live streaming will become an indispensable ability for enterprises of different scales and industries to conduct business internally and externally.
At the industry level, enterprise-level live streaming services complement the sinking upstream giants, accelerate technical exchanges and innovations in the industry, meet the diverse needs of corporate customers at a lower cost, and improve corporate customers’ satisfaction with more mature and complete solutions. Operational efficiency and satisfaction enable more companies to enjoy the opportunities and dividends brought by industrial digitization.
China’s enterprise live streaming service market development environment
The digital economy continues to penetrate in the three industries, and digital transformation service providers such as corporate live streaming usher in a period of accelerated development
According to statistics from the Institute of Information and Communications Technology, from 2016 to 2019, the penetration rate of the digital economy in China’s three industries has steadily increased, and the service industry has led the development of the digital economy. In 2020, the live streaming economy represented by e-commerce live streaming entered millions of households and became businesses in all walks of life. The core kinetic energy of development has created new development opportunities for enterprises. In this context, digital transformation service providers such as enterprise live streaming are actively leveraging their technological and product advantages to export solutions to enterprises that require online business transformation. As one of the important engines for the development of China’s digital economy, China Mobile Internet has accelerated the pace of 5G construction in 2020, and new formats such as live streaming e-commerce and cloud exhibitions continued to emerge, resulting in the continuous growth of mobile Internet traffic consumption. The overall mobile network environment is live streaming. Extensive coverage and penetration on the user side provide a good foundation.
The development history of China’s corporate live streaming service market
After more than ten years of development, the commercial client market fully embraced enterprise live streaming in 2020
Analysis on the coverage of enterprise live streaming service industry
Enterprise live streaming accelerate the coverage of traditional industries while deepening the application of vertical industries
The COVID pandemic in early 2020 has played a role as a magnifying glass and accelerator for the corporate live streaming market: On the one hand, large-scale enterprises with a higher degree of informatization, such as education, finance, and the automotive industry, have deepened their experience on the basis of certain live streaming experience. On the other hand, due to physical constraints and market enthusiasm during the pandemic, traditional industries with backward informatization capabilities such as agriculture, forestry, and national defense and military industries have also accelerated their participation in live streaming. wave. On the whole, as an emergency response under the pandemic, corporate live streaming has played a strong role in promoting the digital transformation of multiple industries in China’s commercial client market.
What are the differences among enterprise live streaming services?
In the marketing scenario, the core value of corporate live streaming services lies in the precipitation of private domain traffic
In the marketing and customer acquisition scenario, the prominent advantage of corporate live streaming services over public domain traffic platforms that provide live streaming services such as e-commerce and short videos (such as Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou) lies in the precipitation of the value of private domain traffic, the strengthening of corporate brand influence and the improvement of operational efficiency.
Industry Chain of China’s Enterprise Live Streaming Service Market
The upstream and downstream players in the industry chain have more flexible cooperation methods and closer cooperation
The industry chain of China’s corporate live streaming service market is mainly composed of upstream cloud platforms, CDNs, third-party technology service providers, midstream corporate live streaming service providers and hardware, marketing, and software service providers, and downstream corporate customers in different vertical industries. In 2020, China’s enterprise live streaming service market developed rapidly. The outstanding change brought about by the industry chain is that the cooperative relationship between enterprise live streaming service providers and other actors in the industry chain is closer, and some new cooperation explorations have also been generated. For example, upstream cloud vendors in the industry chain reached strategic cooperation with leading enterprise live streaming service providers to jointly build a SaaS ecosystem; in response to market demand, enterprise live streaming service providers also began to cooperate with hardware vendors to develop enterprise-oriented live streaming hardware leasing and sales services; in addition, technological service providers in the field of artificial intelligence such as IFLYTEK cooperate with enterprise live streaming service providers to achieve real-time subtitle translation and other effects adapted to the needs of special scenes in the live streaming.
China’s enterprise live streaming service provider echelon
Fierce competition among top service providers, vertical deep cultivation and horizontal expansion go hand in hand
In 2020, the live streaming market was hot again due to the pandemic. Whether it is a leading enterprise live streaming service provider that has been in the industry for many years, or a small newcomer, they will have doubled their business volume growth. On the whole, the competition pattern of China’s enterprise live streaming service market is developing in a relatively stable direction, and the head players in the first and second echelon have built their respective competitive barriers, both in terms of revenue scale and the volume of customers served are at the leading level in the industry. At the same time, it can be observed that there is still relatively fierce competition among the head service providers, mainly because, in order to continue to expand the business scale and market competitiveness, the head service providers on the one hand continue to deepen their own vertical areas with relative advantages, on the other hand, also began to actively embrace a broader business user side of the market, in the direction of more live applications at the same time.
China’s enterprise live streaming service market size
The enterprise live streaming market is developing rapidly, and it is expected to sprint to tens of billions in the next three years
Enterprise live streaming emerged in 2012. In 2016, it experienced explosive growth driven by the overall development trend of the enterprise service market. There has been a significant decline from 2017 to 2018. The capital market’s attitude towards corporate live streaming has become more rational, but users’ recognition of corporate live streaming has gradually increased. Leading manufacturers in various sub-tracks have become more mature in their commercialization exploration. In 2019, driven by online education and e-commerce live streaming, it resumed its upward trend against the trend. In 2020, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, the corporate live streaming service market exploded strongly, with a growth rate of about 158%. However, many Chinese companies are still in the shallow application of live streaming. In the future, panic consumption during the pandemic will further return to rationality. The number of companies that use live streaming in depth will increase. Therefore, in the short term, the market is still expected to maintain relatively high growth momentum, and it is expected to exceed the scale of tens of billions in 2022.
Investment and financing of China’s corporate live streaming market
The proportion of Series B and Series C financing increased, and the average financing amount increased
Counting the distribution of investment and financing rounds of major companies in the corporate live streaming service field since 2015, it can be seen that the proportion of round B and round C financing events has increased, and all financing events in 2020 were Pre-B rounds and above. Among these financing events, the number of events with an amount exceeding 100 million yuan accounted for 83% in 2020, and the average financing amount was around 400 million yuan. It can be seen that the outbreak of pan-entertainment live streaming on the personal user terminal in 2015 has a certain boost to the attention of investors on the corporate live streaming service track. And after the test of the 2020 epidemic, the enterprise live service vendors with more mature products and more verifiable business models will gain more investors’ attention.
Development and changes on the demand side of enterprise live streaming services
Enterprise live streaming services provide individual users with richer viewing channels and content scenarios
In 2020, users have undergone significant changes in live streaming viewing channels and viewing content types. On the one hand, the channels for users to watch live streaming have become richer and more convenient: iResearch’s research shows that, in addition to the widely known, earlier involved in live social entertainment platform, e-commerce platform and video platform, WeChat Mini Programs, web H5, other vertical class APP and other enterprise live service main coverage of the channel has become live content channels watched by more than 60% of the surveyed users. On the other hand, the types of live content that users often watch also show diversified characteristics: for example, live music, events, corporate training, meetings, conventions and other scenes that traditionally focus on offline forms are now also the types of content that users often watch. The online presentation of these traditional offline scenes is usually inseparable from the product and service support from enterprise live service providers.
The short-term surge in demand drives the increase in the penetration rate of commercial users of enterprise live streaming services
In 2020, the demand for live streaming by Chinese companies has surged during the severe period of the pandemic. Although the demand has declined after the pandemic has stabilized, the overall penetration rate of live streaming in the commercial client market is still driven by the pandemic due to the continuation of the habits of some new customers. Compared with 2019, there was a big improvement. Taking the online education industry with huge demand for live streaming services as an example, according to iResearch’s independent statistical calculations, the online education rate of the overall online education and market segments increased significantly in 2020. Among them, live streaming is the main form of online K12 subject training, low-age and quality education. At the same time, judging from the changes in the cumulative downloads of the Android APP products of the enterprise live streaming service provider Vzan, the downloads increased significantly from February to April 2020, and maintained steady growth in the months after the pandemic stabilized, reflecting corporate customers. Interest and concern for corporate live streaming services continue.
Chinese companies tend to be rational in their live streaming planning
In the early stage of the development of the pandemic in 2020, a large number of companies’ offline business was blocked, and live streaming became an emergency remedy. Many Chinese companies were able to maintain their regular business operations, and some companies have achieved more than expected growth due to the use of live streaming. Behind the market’s vigorous pursuit of live streaming, there are also some unsuccessful corporate live streaming attempts. The reason is that the positive attempts of these companies on live streaming are not wrong, but only when the company has a certain understanding of the functions and application scenarios of live streaming products, and has a clear consideration and plan for the synergy between their own business and live streaming. Later, with the help of live streaming service providers, the live streaming can play a better role.
At present, the intense stage of anti-pandemic has passed. With the optimization of corporate live streaming functions and the improvement of service capabilities, corporate customers’ reliance on and importance of live streaming has increased significantly, and they have gradually accumulated certain experience in live streaming and market observation, and they have become independent. The ability to plan live streaming. Combining the information obtained from corporate interviews on the use of live streaming services by commercial users, iResearch believes that in 2021, the commercial user market will continue to maintain confidence and enthusiasm for live streaming. Exploring new channels and businesses.
Cloud is the general trend, be open and build together
Upstream service providers take the lead in building a SaaS ecosystem and promote industry interconnection
The changes on the enterprise live streaming supply side first started with upstream cloud vendors. Since 2019, China’s leading cloud vendors have begun to try to form a SaaS ecosystem, creating opportunities for cooperation and win-win for a variety of commercial user-side SaaS service companies, including enterprise live streaming service providers, and this trend was even more significant in 2020. There are many products in the SaaS field. Enterprise users often cooperate with multiple SaaS suppliers based on their business needs, and at the same time expect to choose the product that best meets their needs within their limited budget. Therefore, the integration and integration of different systems is very important. The construction of the SaaS ecosystem can solve the problems of separation and integration between different SaaS vendors; at the same time, vendors in the SaaS ecosystem can flexibly call the capabilities of cloud vendors and other SaaS vendors to help them better meet the large corporate customers’ demands. Enterprise live streaming service providers have settled in the SaaS ecosystem and have obtained better underlying technical support and rich customer resources of large manufacturers, which is conducive to achieving a win-win situation for cloud vendors, live streaming service providers, and enterprise customers.
“Ambitious” live streaming service providers in China
Products + solutions + services continue to upgrade to help customers succeed in all aspects
After large-scale applications and rapid development in 2020, enterprise live streaming service providers have developed from the role of a more substitutable live streaming tool to a comprehensive and integrated service provider. The changes are mainly reflected in the upgrade of live streaming products, industry solutions and comprehensive service capabilities. In terms of products, the surge in market demand in the short term in 2020 has become the touchstone of service providers’ live streaming technology and product capabilities. Service providers have quickly updated and iterated live streaming products to meet the different needs of a large number of customers to polish live streaming products with better user experience; In terms of solutions, the customer service experience and successful cases accumulated in practice help service providers to better understand the live streaming pain points and demand differences of customers in different industries, and on this basis, introduce more personalized and systematic industry customer solutions; in terms of service, The boundaries of live streaming services have been further widened, and service providers have carried out more refined operations for different types of corporate customers, and combined their own advantages to help customers succeed in all aspects.
Product upgrade – prosperity comes from competition
Driven by customer demand, the details of corporate live streaming products continue to be optimized
In terms of changes in enterprise live streaming products, although no major technological breakthroughs have occurred in the industry in 2020, specific to the design optimization and functional iteration of live streaming products, the leading enterprise live streaming service providers are fully cooperating with the subtle needs of corporate customers. The product details polishing and iteration speed showed a high degree of enthusiasm. In just one year, it continued to update up to more than a hundred times to continuously improve the customer’s product experience and satisfaction. On the whole, the corporate live streaming products have been greatly improved in terms of live streaming settings and start-up, enterprise personalized management, live streaming data analysis and operation, terminal viewing and interactive experience.
Solution upgrade – towards systemization
Directly hit the pain points of sub-industry and provide industry-specific solutions
When the pandemic broke out in early 2020 and offline business activities were suspended, a large number of Chinese companies of different industries and sizes tried to transfer some of their businesses online through live streaming, and enterprises in various industries hope to turn the tide through live streaming and also serve as live streaming service providers for enterprises. Existing enterprise live streaming products are increasingly difficult to meet the needs of segmented applications under different business scenarios in different industries at the same time. Take the traditional brick-and-mortar retail industry that relies on offline store sales as an example. Although an online live streaming launched by the headquarters is very popular, if the actual promotion and distribution data cannot be clearly traced in the live streaming product, it will be difficult for merchants to implement it. A transparent assessment mechanism can easily lead to a decrease in employee enthusiasm. Therefore, combined with product feedback from a large number of corporate customers in various industries, corporate live streaming service providers quickly dismantled the live streaming needs of different industries, and introduced systematic, convenient and easy-to-use industry solutions that are more adapted to the characteristics of the industry.
Look into the needs of special scenes, strive to maximize the value of live streaming services
Another prominent live streaming solution is launched for large-scale offline events by enterprise live streaming service providers, such as summits, exhibitions, corporate annual meetings and other traditional offline scenarios. Although, some large-scale activities have been held offline before 2020 using live streaming services for online distribution, but the meeting, exhibition industry, large-scale adoption of online live streaming form held, or mainly by the 2020 pandemic prevention and control period to prohibit the gathering of people, large-scale offline activities could not be carried out by the pressure of the promotion. According to the special characteristics of live streaming, the enterprise live service provider launched and perfected a full range of live streaming solutions from the planning and preheating before live streaming, live shooting, guidance, pushing flow and interaction, to the video image processing and data analysis after live streaming, reducing the threshold of online live broadcast operation of the event organizer, while providing it with data value that offline activities do not have.
Service upgrade – keep improving
In-depth service and customer reputation drive sustainable business growth
According to iResearch’s research on live streaming service providers of many Chinese leading enterprises, after the market baptism in 2020, enterprise live streaming service providers have also made a lot of efforts to improve their service capabilities to reduce customer loss. In the case of products meeting the needs of enterprise users, in-depth, meticulous, and customer-expected services can effectively increase the repurchase probability of enterprise users, win a good reputation, and bring potential growth.
Typical enterprise case – Vzan
Focus on the WeChat ecology, and deepen the live streaming services of enterprises to empower enterprise marketing
Founded in 2015, Vzan is an enterprise-level live SaaS service provider focusing on the WeChat ecosystem. Vzan aims to become China’s leading WeChat marketing SaaS service provider. At present, it has established a three-dimensional business system in the fields of Vzan Live streaming, Vzan Cloud, Zhibo Education, and Xinxiang Video Streaming. WeChat live streaming is built on the WeChat ecosystem. Based on the features of WeChat’s integration of content, interaction, payment, e-commerce and other functions, it has established a SaaS tool that focuses on corporate live streaming to help companies acquire customers and brand marketing. One-stop interactive and monetization entrance. At present, Vzan live streaming has established a leading enterprise live streaming SaaS service platform in the industry, providing industry-wide scene-oriented, relatively mature professional enterprise live streaming SaaS services for the entire industry.
Enterprise exclusive brand chain operation management system to help brand digital transformation and upgrading.
In the process of creating private domain traffic pools, enterprises cannot do without customer relationship management (CRM). Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) is the entire life cycle of a company’s customer operations, focusing on open information transmission, high-frequency interaction, and intelligent data analysis to improve efficiency. Vzan is committed to providing enterprises with efficient private domain traffic solutions through live streaming + user SCRM refined operation. Through the introduction of omni-channel users, a private domain traffic pool is formed to further customer stratification and reach, thereby completing the full life cycle management of users and realizing digital transformation and upgrading.
Enterprise layer – solution maturation
As the solution matures, live streaming will become an indispensable capability for enterprises of different scales and industries to conduct business internally and externally
Currently, the wave of digitalization of Chinese enterprises is still continuing. It is foreseeable that, regardless of scale or industry, live streaming will gradually become an indispensable ability for most Chinese enterprises to manage internally and operate externally. For a large number of SMEs with insufficient competitive resources, poor risk resistance and insufficient digital capabilities, the digital transformation starting with live marketing is expected to bring broader business opportunities and better reference for business decisions; For large enterprises with large organizational structures and a large number of employees, the video deployment of enterprises with live streaming as the core is also an important step in their digital transformation process. It is effective in multiple scenarios such as external marketing, internal meetings, employee training, and brand building. Therefore, the penetration rate of enterprise live streaming services among small and medium-sized enterprises and large enterprises in China will continue to rise.
Industrial layer – the release of the potential energy of the industrial chain
Upstream giants are sinking in an all-round way, and SaaS enterprise-level live streaming service providers complement each other and promote the overall scale of the industry to further rise
Looking at the enterprise service SaaS market to which enterprise live streaming service providers belong, after several years of rapid development, China’s SaaS market has begun to enter the business extension stage, and there is still a large gap between its overall scale and mature markets such as the United States, which also reflects the vast market space it has in the future. The upstream giants’ active attempts and cooperative explorations for the construction of the SaaS ecosystem are continuously strengthening and deepening, bringing greater room for growth in the enterprise live streaming service market. It is foreseeable that when cloud service providers, enterprise live streaming service providers and other SaaS service providers in China work together to leverage their respective advantages, they can accelerate the promotion of technological exchanges and innovations in the industry, meet the diverse needs of enterprise customers at a lower cost, and enhance the operational efficiency and satisfaction of enterprise customers with more mature and perfect solutions, so that more Chinese enterprises can enjoy the opportunities and dividends brought by industrial digitization.
Source: iResearch