Huya marked a quarterly uptick in its revenue and number of monthly active users, even as the business environment and regulatory conditions for the industry are transforming, according to the firm’s third quarter financial report released on Tuesday.
As China’s largest game livestreaming platform, Huya recorded 5.7% year-on-year growth in net revenues, reaching RMB 2.9 billion (USD 460 million) in the third quarter of 2021, an uptick from RMB 2.8 billion for the same period last year. The growth is primarily driven by advertising and other revenues like content licensing, the company said. Earnings from these sources increased by 137% to RMB 373.7 million (USD 58 million) for the third quarter.
Live streaming revenues, the main source of revenue of the company, dropped by 2.1% to RMB 26 billion (USD 4 billion) due to lower average spending per paying user on Huya Live.
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The number of Huya’s MAUs increased to 85.1 million, representing a 14.7% bump from 74.2 million in the same period of 2020. The total number of paying users of Huya Live is around 6 million, roughly the same as last year.
The size of China’s game livestreaming market was around RMB 34.3 billion (USD 5.36 billion) in 2020, and is expected to reach RMB 50 billion (USD 7.8 billion) in 2022, according to consulting firm iResearch. Huya has a market share of over 40%, the largest in the industry.
The game livestreaming sector has witnessed a series of changes after the planned USD 5.3 billion merger deal between Huya and Douyu was blocked by regulators out of antitrust concerns. Tencent, the largest video game company in the world, and a significant stakeholder in both companies, chose to subsequently reboot its game streaming business by diverting resources to its eGame business arm.
Competition in the industry is set to get stiffer as other video platforms, including video streaming site Bilibili and short video app Kuaishou, are also marching into the space, according to iResearch.
Huya will strengthen its competitive advantages by retaining streaming talent, producing quality content, and delivering product innovations, CEO Rongjie Dong noted during the earnings call.