Analyst - Media&Entertainment Sector, Blue Lotus Research Institute

Stan Zhao

Analyst - Media&Entertainment Sector

China growth and global non-US Internet equities

Blue Lotus Research Institute

Blue Lotus Research is a Hong Kong Type 4 Licensed investment advisory firm focusing on Chinese growth equities and global non-US Internet equities

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul>
<li>DeepSeek's (DS) low-cost, high-performance open-source model fundamentally altered the AI landscape, but server overload of DS's chatbot caused poor user experience;</li>
<li>Among many Internet platforms that integrated DS into their products, Tencent stood to benefit the most. Through DS, Tencent LLM climbed 3 spots to unseat ByteDance to become the No.1;</li>
<li>What Tencent has done right including preprocessing, answer caching and building dedicated nodes. Now Manus is catching the imagination of AI monetization, Tencent can possible benefit more.</li>
</ul>


DeepSeek's (DS) low-cost, high-performance open-source model fundamentally altered the AI landscape, but server overload of DS's chatbot caused poor user experience;
Among many Internet platforms that integrated DS into their products, Tencent stood to benefit the most. Through DS, Tencent LLM climbed 3 spots to unseat ByteDance to become the No.1;
What Tencent has done right including preprocessing, answer caching and building dedicated nodes. Now Manus is catching the imagination of AI monetization, Tencent can possible benefit more.


Surprise! The Biggest Beneficiary of Cloud DeepSeek Is Tencent...Will Manus Be the Same?

<ul>
<li>The two new titles released in December, &lt;One Piece: Ambition&gt; and &lt;Where Winds Meet&gt;, from Tencent and NetEase, have shown promising early results and should become major blockbusters in 2025</li>
<li>For Tencent, the holiday updates for &lt;DnF Mobile&gt; and &lt;Arena Breakout&gt; have underperformed, leading us to revise our revenue expectations downward by approximately 10%.</li>
<li>Bilibili's key title, &lt;Three Kingdoms: MDTX&gt;, has seen a slight decline in popularity,  due to the intense competition in the SLG genre. The future seasonal updates could rejuvenate the performance.</li>
</ul>


The two new titles released in December, &lt;One Piece: Ambition&gt; and &lt;Where Winds Meet&gt;, from Tencent and NetEase, have shown promising early results and should become major blockbusters in 2025
For Tencent, the holiday updates for &lt;DnF Mobile&gt; and &lt;Arena Breakout&gt; have underperformed, leading us to revise our revenue expectations downward by approximately 10%.
Bilibili's key title, &lt;Three Kingdoms: MDTX&gt;, has seen a slight decline in popularity,  due to the intense competition in the SLG genre. The future seasonal updates could rejuvenate the performance.


China Online Game Grossing Monitor: December 16, 2024 - January‌ 4, 2025

<ul>
<li>US and China are two biggest markets in autonomous driving and robotaxi. However, due to US-China decoupling, each market is off limits to the other;</li>
<li>This makes non-US/non-China markets heavily contended. Uber and Lyft leads Didi and Meituan in globalization. But Chinese EV makers and ADS vendors might benefit from partnering with the two;</li>
<li>We expect companies with low priced vehicle production capacity, like BYD, XPEV, LEAP and Zeekr to  benefit more. Among ADS vendors, WeRide and Poni.AI stand out.</li>
</ul>


US and China are two biggest markets in autonomous driving and robotaxi. However, due to US-China decoupling, each market is off limits to the other;
This makes non-US/non-China markets heavily contended. Uber and Lyft leads Didi and Meituan in globalization. But Chinese EV makers and ADS vendors might benefit from partnering with the two;
We expect companies with low priced vehicle production capacity, like BYD, XPEV, LEAP and Zeekr to  benefit more. Among ADS vendors, WeRide and Poni.AI stand out.


Prospectus of Robotaxi Outside of China and US Is Bright for Chinese Supply Chains

Equity Bottom-Up

Kuaishou Technology operates as a content community and social platform. The Company helps users create, upload and watch short videos on mobile devices. Kuaishou Technology offers services worldwide.

<ul>
<li>On December 16th, Kuaishou launched a subscription service for its micro drama channel, we believe it marks a key step towards improving monetization;</li>
<li>The penetration rate of heavy micro drama users on the platform has steadily increased, and leveraging their loyalty and monetization efficiency may improve with the subscription model.</li>
<li>The new model could better help mitigate the macroeconomic risks posed by advertising and the content quality risks of its long-tail partners.</li>
</ul>


On December 16th, Kuaishou launched a subscription service for its micro drama channel, we believe it marks a key step towards improving monetization;
The penetration rate of heavy micro drama users on the platform has steadily increased, and leveraging their loyalty and monetization efficiency may improve with the subscription model.
The new model could better help mitigate the macroeconomic risks posed by advertising and the content quality risks of its long-tail partners.


Monetization Upgrade Kickstarts Kuaishou's Microdrama Business

<ul>
<li>&lt;Peacekeeper&gt;'s more aggressive gameplay reforms and monetization changes have delivered better results, leading us to raise its 2024 annualized gross billings estimate slightly.</li>
<li>&lt;DnF Mobile&gt;'s new version experienced a slight decline in player retention, though this is likely temporary. As a result, we have slightly lowered its 2024 annualized grossing estimates.</li>
<li>NetEase's &lt;Eggy Party&gt; received player feedback that fell slightly below expectations. The game continues to face considerable pressure for revenue recovery, prompting us to lower our full-year revenue estimate slightly.</li>
</ul>


&lt;Peacekeeper&gt;'s more aggressive gameplay reforms and monetization changes have delivered better results, leading us to raise its 2024 annualized gross billings estimate slightly.
&lt;DnF Mobile&gt;'s new version experienced a slight decline in player retention, though this is likely temporary. As a result, we have slightly lowered its 2024 annualized grossing estimates.
NetEase's &lt;Eggy Party&gt; received player feedback that fell slightly below expectations. The game continues to face considerable pressure for revenue recovery, prompting us to lower our full-year revenue estimate slightly.


China Online Game Grossing Monitor: October 10, 2024 - December 16, 2024

Mr. Stan (Yifei) Zhao is responsible for assisting in Entertainment and Media coverage at Blue Lotus. Before joining Blue Lotus, Stan worked at Meritco as a Business Analyst. He received his master's degree at the University of Glasgow and majored in Economics and Finance.