Baidu’s $3.6B YY Live Buy to Speed Transition to Ad-Free Revenue: CEO
Baidu’s $3.6 billion all-cash buy of YY Live, the Chinese video streaming service, will render ad-free content a more “meaningful piece” of Baidu’s core business, said Chief Financial Officer Herman Yu on a Q3 investor call Monday. Once Baidu closes…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
the transaction in 2021's first half, its ad-supported “legacy business, which has been dragging our mobile ecosystem growth, will become an even smaller piece” of the company’s portfolio, he said. Baidu has “substantial upside from growing nonadvertising revenue,” said CEO Robin Li. Ad-free revenue, as a share of Baidu’s “consumer-facing business,” is much lower than that of its “peers,” he said. “Adding YY Live to our portfolio will allow Baidu to gain immediate operational experience and know-how on building a large live video community,” plus speed its migration to ad-free revenue, he said. Li rationalized the deal amid growing saturation in streaming services, saying “it's only natural for us to integrate with a live streaming business such as YY and further monetize our existing user base and traffic” of 300 million daily active users.