By SHE Xiaochen
"Loss reduction has become one of the most important tasks," said CHEN Rui, CEO of Bilibili, the Shanghai-based pop-up video platform.
Suffering from a rush to reduce costs and break even to meet the growing needs of various businesses, Bilibili is still “crossing the river by touching the stones.”
The Q3 revenue reached 5.8 billion yuan (US$820 million) with a net loss of 1.7 billion yuan, narrowing 36 percent year-on-year and 15 percent on a quarterly basis. The smaller loss was put down to a reduction in marketing and sales expenses.
Management and R&D will also be cut, with more focus on core business, Chen said. The share of the game business is shrinking and has failed to meet expectations. The game department is now more focused after eliminating projects that did not meet expectations. "Streamlining” is expected to be completed before the end of the year but cost-cutting will continue for a long time.
The integration of live streaming and video business brings more opportunities. Bilibili has partnered with Taobao, Tmall, Jingdong and others on video,live-streamed banded content and ad cast streams.
For Bilibili, more balanced revenue and a healthier business structure are required to boost growth, though more thorny problems are ahead.
