Byte revives the “Hongguo Novels” app to strengthen the layout of free novels

Source | Tech Planet

Text | Chen Qiaohui

Tech Planet learned exclusively that Byte has revived the “Hongguo Novel” APP again. Previously, Byte’s other free novel business “Tomato Novels” was off the shelves for a while, and then launched “Red Fruit Novels” to make up for the vacuum period during which Tomato Novels were off the shelves. , Hongguo Novel completed its mission and quietly went offline.

Now, Hongguo Novel is online again, and the LOGO has been updated, positioning it as a product for free reading and listening to pure novels. Or become the “Gemini” product of Byte Free Fiction.

According to the experience of Tech Planet, compared with Tomato Novels, Hongguo Novels have a simpler reading interface, which may be to form a reading difference with Tomato Novels. Novels include urban rebirth, old sayings, film and television novels, published novels, and audio novels. Support Local reading, reading while listening, automatic reading, night mode and other modes.

In order to attract users during the cold start phase, Hongguo Novels also added a red envelope game to the APP. Users can obtain gold coins by completing tasks, and exchange gold coins into cash for cash withdrawal.

As of press time, Hongguo Novel ranks 32nd in the Apple App Store’s book list, and is still on the rise. Or become a big boost to Byte in the layout of free novels.

With the rapid rise of free novels in China, the domestic novel market is facing a reshuffle. According to MOONFOX data, from the perspective of mainstream apps in the online reading industry in September 2022, the penetration rate and monthly activity of Tomato Free Novels will remain far ahead, of which the monthly activity will reach 153 million, and the penetration rate will reach 17.1%, compared with other apps. Pulling apart the fault-like advantages, the second-ranked Qimao Free Novels have 67.986 million monthly activities, with a penetration rate of 6.5%. WeChat Reading ranks fourth, and there is a huge gap with the monthly activities of Tomato Novels. From the side, it also reflects that free novels have formed a crushing of paid novels in terms of monthly activities.

In addition, this year, Kuaishou, Baidu and other big companies are also deploying free novels, launching Kuaishou free novel APP and Panda novel APP. It can be seen that free novels that rely on advertising for profit are becoming the focus of new players.

In the future, the competition of free novels is bound to intensify further, but it is not difficult to find that each company is no longer limited to novels, but based on novels, to create a cultural and entertainment ecology, for example, on the basis of novels, to short dramas, comics, etc. IP adaptation will be the ultimate goal of each company’s development, so as to form a strategic depth in the content ecology and develop diverse and solid commercial realization channels.