Chinese Twitch-style platform Huya disclosed on Tuesday its financial results for the third quarter 2019, reporting RMB 123.2 million (USD 17.2 million) in net income, up 117.1% from last year, which sustains the company as the local market leader amid a growing rivalry by Bilibili and Kuaishou in the game-centric live-streaming sector.
Driven by the rise in monthly active users (MAUs) and average spending per paying user, Huya’s total revenues for the third quarter of 2019 hit RMB 2.27 billion (USD 317 million), 77.4% more than last year’s RMB 1.28 billion (USD 180 million).
The Guangzhou-headquartered firm reported an overall MAU of 146.1 million on its platform, up 47.6% from the same period last year, while paying users rose by 28.5% to 5.3 million.
Live-streaming revenues—still the primary profit source—surged 77.2% year-on-year to RMB 2.16 billion (USD 301.7 million), making up 95.2% of the company’s total revenues. Meanwhile, advertising and other revenues increased by 81.3% to USD 15.2 million in this quarter.
On the same day, YY Inc., Huya’s parent company and largest shareholder, also announced its third-quarter earnings report.
YY booked RMB 6.89 billion (USD 962.9 million) in total revenues, up 67.8% year-on-year, yet, it also reported a net income of RMB 109.0 million (USD 15.4 million), representing an 83.1% decline from last year, partly due to the company’s overseas expansion effort, including its operation of short-video platform Bigo which has lower gross margins, the company said.
Huya and Douyu, both backed by Tencent, are the two top dogs in China’s game live-streaming field. The latter, who swung into profit in the first quarter of 2019, claimed to have 162.8 million MAUs in the second quarter, beating Huya.
Other rivals, including video-sharing site Bilibili and short-form video app Kuaishou, also want to grab a slice of the lucrative game live-streaming market and are taking steps to offer diverse content to users. Kuaishou said its daily active users of the mobile streaming service exceeded 35 million in July, KrASIA reported.
The heavyweight behind these companies who covet online gaming-related businesses is Tencent, China’s biggest game publisher.
Last week, Huya hosted a live tech conference where unveiled an open platform that seeks to engage and empower third-party mini program developers to boost further innovation.
“We estimate to invest approximately RMB 1 billion (USD 142 million) worth of resources and capitals in supporting our open platform strategy within the next three years,” said Huya’s CFO Henry Dachun Sha during the earnings call today.