Keike launched a new business, but did not say how to do it; Keep went public, and it cost 318 yuan to acquire a new monthly active user last year

Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1748

Keike launched a new business, but did not say how to do it

Shell today (July 12) announced a series of organizational adjustments and personnel appointments. The biggest adjustment is the establishment of a new Beihaojia business line, and the nomination of former COO Xu Wangang to be promoted to the vice chairman of the group and concurrently as the CEO of the new business. Xu Wangang’s original COO functions were assigned to COOs in charge of different business lines.

Now Shell has four business lines (by business), including brokerage, home improvement, Huiju, and Beihaojia. The first three items correspond to the previous real estate transaction business group, home furnishing business group and Huiju business group, and the person in charge is basically the person in charge of the original business group period.

As for the new business Beihaojia, which is in charge of the second position of Shell and senior executive Xu Wangang, the market is not clear about how it will do it. Keike also only said that “with the customer’s thinking, we will build good products and services together, and promote the upgrading of the housing supply side.” Chairman Peng Yongdong explained in the letter to all employees why the “housing supply side upgrade” is needed:

…New housing products are also calling for supply-side upgrades, making it possible to transform the supply chain through innovative methods. It will also be possible to design residential products that meet the needs of customers through big data analysis of the consumption needs and behavioral preferences of different buyers in the city.

A secondary investor who has followed Beike for many years, and another former employee who has worked for Beike for many years also told Wanwan Finance that most of the adjustments were within expectations, except that it is not clear what Beihaojia does. .

In this regard, there are some speculations pointing to the “No. 9 Project” rumored in the market, and developers such as Longfor and Zhonghai are recruited with considerable salaries. The salary increase is generally 30% to 50%. According to the real estate industry self-media “a spoonful of words” that first mentioned the project:

The project was born in the innovative business department of the new housing business center. Keike plans to invest in the real estate project through LP and other means, and then control the marketing and decision-making power of the project company. Keike is connecting with more financial institutions and agency construction companies. At the same time, it is digging out personnel in the development chain of real estate companies. It does not rule out that in the future, it will be deeply involved in real estate projects in terms of product positioning, customer research, construction (through agency construction companies), and marketing. with judgment.

Shell did not comment on the news. But today, people close to Shell told Wanwan Finance that Beihaojia is indeed related to the “No. 9 Project”, but it is more than that. This means that Shell will become more and more like a developer.

It is difficult to evaluate the value and prospect of this new business with limited information. In the first quarter of this year, Keke’s total revenue was about 20.2 billion yuan, of which the revenue from new house transaction services and second-hand house transaction services were 8.4 billion yuan and 9.1 billion yuan, respectively, which increased to varying degrees from the same period last year.

However, the entire real estate industry is still in a state of deep adjustment, and the production and sales data of real estate companies in June has deteriorated compared with the previous month. After the expectation that “housing prices will always rise” was broken, buyers who worried about expensive purchases tended to be cautious, and the follow-up of second-hand housing prices would further intensify their wait-and-see mentality. (Gong Fangyi)

Keep went public, and it cost 318 yuan to acquire a new monthly active user last year

In the past 15 months since the first prospectus was submitted, Keep’s third listing application was approved, and it landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (code: 3650) today. The price was HK$28.92 per share, which was the lower limit of the IPO pricing range. Up 0.28%.

As the largest fitness platform in China, Keep’s business covers online fitness courses, sales of its own products, cooperation with offline gyms to sell courses, etc. In 2022, Keep’s total revenue will be 2.21 billion yuan, more than half of which will come from its own brand products, 40% will come from membership fees and subscription content, and other revenues such as advertising and offline courses will account for less than 10%. The net loss for the year was 1.05 billion yuan.

From 2019 to 2022, the number of Keep monthly active users will increase from 21.77 million to 36.39 million. Affected by the epidemic at home, the fastest growth rate will reach 36% in 2020. Keep is also trying to seize opportunities. The prospectus mentions that the company will strategically increase marketing and promotion expenditures in 2021 to further expand its user base.

But the effect is not as expected. In 2021, Keep’s sales and marketing expenses will more than triple to 960 million yuan, and the number of new monthly active users will be 4.62 million throughout the year, which is less than 60% of the previous year. Calculated, the average investment for each new user to acquire customers is 207 yuan, which is more than five times that of 2020.

As Keep cuts its marketing investment by one-third in 2022, the number of new monthly active users will decrease by nearly 60%, resulting in more expensive sales expenses per new customer, reaching 318 yuan. During the period, Douyin, Station B, and even Xiaohongshu’s big and small anchors were diverting Keep’s small fitness customer base.

For example, Liu Genghong, who broadcasts live fitness classes on Douyin, gained more than 10 million fans in a single week at the peak in the second quarter of last year, and the number of users watching a single session exceeded 52 million, which is nearly 14 million more than the number of monthly active users of Keep in the same period.

Since the beginning of this year, as people return to offline, the popularity of online fitness has accelerated. In the first quarter of this year, the average monthly active users of Keep fell by 23% year-on-year to 26.26 million, the worst first-quarter data since the epidemic. However, the number of paying members is still nearly double that of the same period in 2020, and the member penetration rate is stable at around 10%.

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The user growth ceiling is limited, so it is natural to tap the value of a single user as much as possible. At present, Keep’s own brand products cover multiple categories, from strength training balance boards to protein bars, but this also requires huge costs to support, and faces fierce competition from leaders in different fields such as Xiaomi, Apple, and Nike.

According to the prospectus, in 2021, Keep will launch about 300 SPUs (same SPU with different colors), and 313 SPUs in 2022. In two years, research and development costs increased by 120% to 540 million yuan, and product sales revenue increased by 79% to 1.14 billion yuan.

Keep was founded in 2014. The founder, Wang Ning, summed up the most important element “persistence” from his own weight loss experience, and used it as the brand name. Keep was officially launched in 2015 and has been welcomed by young users, gaining hundreds of millions of users in 3 years. Since its establishment 9 years ago, Keep has received 9 rounds of financing in total. There are many investors from well-known institutions such as GGV Jiyuan Capital, Wuyuan Capital, Tencent, Softbank, Hillhouse and so on.

There is a similar story across the ocean. The American fitness platform Peloton was founded in 2012. It initially only sold sports equipment. It launched an online fitness platform in 2015. Investors include Tiger Global and Fidelity International. It went public in 2019.

From 2019 to 2021, Peloton’s revenue increased from US$710 million to US$4.02 billion, and it was once profitable, with a market value of more than US$56 billion. As the home sports craze subsided, Peloton’s revenue fell back to $3.58 billion last year. As of March this year, it has lost money for nine consecutive quarters. Marketing expenditures, research and development expenditures, and product recall costs are all dragging down.

At present, Peloton’s stock price has fallen by 95% from its high point, and it has fallen by more than 60% from the opening price on the first day of listing. For Keep, the bonus has just passed, and the challenge is beginning. (Lin Guangying)

Institute of Finance, Academy of Social Sciences: China’s economic recovery slowed down in the second quarter

According to the latest analysis of the macroeconomic situation in the second quarter released by the Institute of Finance and Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:

Unstable income and employment expectations restrict consumption growth, the growth rate of manufacturing and real estate investment declines, and the high base combined with the slowdown in external demand leads to a negative growth rate of exports; the pressure of deflation further intensifies, the year-on-year growth rate of CPI drops to around 0, and the year-on-year growth rate of PPI continues Negative growth, increasing downward pressure on demand.

Talking about possible reasons, the analysis team said in the report:

The problem of insufficient effective demand facing the current economy stems from the weakening of expectations of micro-subjects and the damage of balance sheets to form a negative feedback loop. Specifically, shrinking assets and unstable expectations lead to residents’ active deleveraging, falling profits, and lack of confidence weaken enterprises to increase leverage. Willingness, sluggish land finance and rising debt repayment pressure forced local governments to passively deleverage.

Among them, the shrinkage of residents’ balance sheets is manifested in:

Residents took the initiative to increase savings, reduce consumption, and repay debts… The accumulation of residents’ deposits has eased, but unstable income expectations have prevented deposits from being effectively converted into consumption.

The slowdown in the expansion of corporate balance sheets is manifested in:

The year-on-year growth rate of assets and liabilities of industrial enterprises slowed down month by month, and the growth rate of assets was lower than the growth rate of liabilities, resulting in a passive increase in the asset-liability ratio. From April to May, corporate credit and bond financing dropped significantly, and the willingness to actively increase leverage was insufficient. The main reason was that the decline in profits was difficult to support the expansion of the balance sheet.

For possible incentive policies, the analysis team recommends:

The central government should appropriately increase the leverage and increase the deficit ratio, the central bank should continue to cut interest rates by a large margin, and increase the rescue and assistance of high-quality private housing enterprises. Strengthen policy coordination and cooperation from the perspective of national governance, and improve the macroeconomic governance system. Fully mobilize local enthusiasm and go all out to fight for the economy. Build a pro-Qing political and business relationship and promote the high-quality development of the private economy.

U.S. consumers have used up their pandemic savings

Bill Gross, a world-renowned bond investment expert, recently warned that “$4 trillion in spending on the new crown epidemic is still flowing into the economy, while consumers are still consuming the last 500 billion or so.”

Research released by the Federal Reserve in June showed that the excess savings accumulated by American households during the epidemic was consumed faster than in other countries. The US household savings rate surged from 8% before the pandemic to 24% in April 2021. Savings rates have also risen sharply in other advanced economies such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the euro area. By the end of 2022, as the economy reopens, the U.S. savings rate has fallen back to pre-pandemic levels.

  • Excess savings of residents refers to the amount of money actually saved by residents that exceeds the normal level in a certain period of time.
  • For example, we usually only save 100 yuan a month, but this time we suddenly save 500 yuan, then the extra 400 yuan is excess savings.

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Unlike a typical recession, household savings have risen despite job losses and lower incomes during the pandemic. This is because home isolation has reduced consumer spending opportunities such as catering, travel and entertainment, and many families have also hoarded funds for emergencies due to uncertainty about future income.

As the epidemic subsided, American households consumed their savings at an unprecedented rate, and a large amount of money poured into the market, which also increased inflationary pressures to a certain extent. And when savings are gradually depleted, it may have a major impact on the still overheated US economy. (Intern Lin Hongsheng)​

OTHER NEWS

The National Development and Reform Commission released a series of cases of platform companies supporting technological innovation and transformation of traditional industries.

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and relevant departments conducted in-depth research to understand the development of platform companies. According to the National Development and Reform Commission, in the first quarter of 2023, the investment of the top 10 platform companies in China by market capitalization in the fields of chips, autonomous driving, new energy, and agriculture increased by 15.6 percentage points from the previous quarter, forming a number of typical investment cases involving Tencent, Meituan, Alibaba’s investments in different fields.

Finally, the National Development and Reform Commission reiterated that “support platform companies to play a more active role in leading development, creating jobs and international competition.” According to “Laner Finance and Economics”, the Central Economic Work Conference at the end of last year had a similar formulation: to vigorously develop the digital economy and improve the level of normalized supervision. Support platform enterprises to show their talents in leading development, creating jobs, and competing internationally.

In the first half of the year, the net increase in the number of individual industrial and commercial households in the country was higher than that of the previous year.

According to the State Administration for Market Regulation, in the first half of this year, 11.365 million new individual industrial and commercial households were added across the country. By the end of June, the total number reached 119 million, an increase of 11.3% year-on-year, accounting for 67.4% of the total number of business entities. At the beginning of last year, there were 103 million individual industrial and commercial households across the country, which increased to 110 million by the end of the year.

The U.S. CPI rose 3% year-on-year in June, the slowest growth rate since early 2021.

US June consumer price index (CPI) rose 3% year-on-year, lower than the expected 3.1%, the previous value of 4.0%. The core CPI, which excludes the volatile energy and food prices, rose by 4.8% year-on-year, compared with the expected 5.0% and the previous value of 5.3%. Although the current core CPI is still higher than the Fed’s annual target of 2%, and the previous interest rate meeting is expected to raise interest rates twice this year, the June data has eased the Fed’s future interest rate hike pressure to a certain extent.

China Merchants Capital plans to privatize Qinhuai Data for US$3.4 billion.

China Merchants Capital, a subsidiary of China Merchants Group, a state-owned enterprise, announced that it intends to make a tender offer to acquire and privatize Qinhuai Data, a Nasdaq-listed company, with a transaction price of approximately US$3.4 billion (approximately RMB 25 billion). Chindata has participated in domestic projects such as “counting from east to west”. At the same time, it is also the only Chinese concept stock that is actually controlled by a foreign fund. Its major shareholder, Bain Capital, has announced that it intends to privatize it for approximately US$2.93 billion.

ByteDance will allow U.S. employees to cash out unlisted options.

ByteDance announced that it will allow American employees to participate in the future option repurchase plan, so that these employees can cash out through the company’s repurchase equity before the company goes public. The measure will involve 7,000 TikTok US employees, and the goal is to provide employees with competitive returns. Since 2017, ByteDance has provided domestic employees with an average of twice a year option repurchase opportunities to meet the realization needs of employees.

US court approves Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

A U.S. court in California approved Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard and rejected a request for a preliminary injunction from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In recent years, the United States has become increasingly vigilant and fearful of large monopolistic companies, and the United States is the largest market for Activision Blizzard’s games. This approval made Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick optimistic that “today’s The ruling paves the way for full approval by regulators in other parts of the world.” In addition, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has agreed to negotiate with Microsoft on the acquisition and joined the two companies to terminate the litigation process.

Temasek said it would not invest in cryptocurrency exchanges in the near future.

Singapore’s state-owned investment company Temasek recently stated that it does not plan to invest in cryptocurrency exchanges in the near future because the industry lacks a suitable regulatory framework. Last year, Temasek lost US$275 million due to the FTX bankruptcy write-down. In the year ended March this year, its net investment portfolio decreased by 5.2% year-on-year to S$382 billion, which was S$21 billion (approximately US$15.8 billion) less than the previous fiscal year. ). Since late June, bitcoin prices have stabilized in a range of $29,500 to $31,500.

Bezos’ rocket motor exploded during a test.

According to media reports, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s airline Blue Origin had an ignition accident at the end of last month. A BE-4 rocket engine exploded during the test and the test stand was also severely damaged. Blue Origin responded that it was evaluating the root cause. The BE-4, Blue Origin’s core rocket engine, was originally planned for launch in 2017, but was not completed until recently due to numerous development problems.

Nuclear fission startup backed by OpenAI CEO plans to go public as a SPAC.

Nuclear fission startup Oklo announced Tuesday that it will merge with special purpose acquisition company AltC to go public. Oklo, valued at about $850 million pre-money, is expected to raise $500 million for nuclear energy production and construction of nuclear fuel recycling facilities. OpenAI CEO Altman has served as chairman of Oklo since 2015 and is also the co-founder and CEO of AltC. He also invested $375 million in Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion power generation company. Helion plans to generate electricity through nuclear fusion by 2028.

The Nasdaq 100 Index intends to reduce the impact of the seven largest technology stocks on the index.

Nasdaq announced that it will adjust the weight of the Nasdaq 100 index to weaken the excessive influence of technology giants in the index. Since the beginning of this year, despite the adverse effects of the Fed’s interest rate hike and weakening economic expectations, the total market value of the seven technology giants has risen by 60%. The rapid increase in market capitalization has brought the weight of these seven companies to 55% in the Nasdaq 100 Index. Among them, Microsoft has the highest weight of 12.9%, followed by Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla and Meta.

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The world’s largest buyer of gallium said customers were stockpiling.

According to media reports, Freiberger, the world’s largest gallium purchaser, said that due to China’s plan to impose export controls on gallium, its customers are placing large orders and hoarding gallium arsenide wafers produced by the company. Freiberger, which consumes about 10% of global production of gallium, still has several months of gallium in stockpiles. Although industry experts from many countries have assessed that China’s restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium will not lead to tight supply in the short term, traders usually do not stock a lot of stocks because of the small output and high value of these two metals, and many companies have started to stock up. Last week, the global price of gallium metal has risen by nearly 30%.

Sixty percent of the respondents are worried about losing their jobs because of AI, and the deadline is within ten years.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently released a survey of 2,000 employers and 5,300 employees in the manufacturing and financial industries in 7 countries. The results show that: 3/5 of the interviewed employees are worried about losing their jobs due to AI in the next ten years. Three-quarters say AI has increased the intensity of their jobs. While employers are currently reluctant to fire workers due to AI replacement, this may be because AI adoption is in its early stages, and 27 percent of jobs are in occupations with a high risk of automation (jobs that rely on skills that can easily replaced by automation).

Twitter may block link searches with Threads.

Some users found that they could still tweet with a Threads link on Twitter, but they couldn’t search for related posts. The incident aroused heated discussions, and people believed that Twitter quietly limited the spread of Threads and quickly found a way to crack it. According to analytics firm Sametime, Twitter traffic dropped 5 percent in the first two days of Threads and was down 11 percent year-over-year. Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, dismissed reports of a drop in traffic.

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