Chinese live streaming platform Huya reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2020. The company generated net revenues of ¥2.4B RMB ($338M USD) for the period ended March 31, which marks an increase of roughly 48% compared to ¥1.6B ($228.6M) in Q1 2019.
Huya’s major source of revenues was its live streaming business, which generated ¥2.3B ($318.8M) or roughly 94% of total revenues. The company attributed the increase in live streaming revenues of 46.5% primarily to the rise in average spending per paying user and the number of paying users on Huya.
The company recorded an increase of 22.2% to 151.3M in average monthly active users (MAUs) on its platform during the first quarter of the year. Mobile users, measured in average mobile monthly users, increased by 38.6% to 74.7M from 53.9M in the first quarter of 2019. Huya’s total number of paying users reached 6.1M in Q1 2020, representing an increase of 13% from 5.4M in the first quarter of 2019.
In total, Huya ended the first quarter of 2020 with a net profit of ¥171.2M ($24M), up 169.8% year-over-year from ¥63.5M ($8.9M) in the previous year.
In its business outlook for the second quarter of 2020, the company revealed that it expects revenue growth to slow down to around 30% with net revenues of approximately ¥2.6B ($364M) as it considers the potential impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, including the temporary suspension of public entertainment activities during China’s national day of mourning on April 4, 2020.
In April 2020, Tencent became Huya’s largest shareholder. In Huya’s earnings report, the company’s CEO, Rongjie Dong, explained that “…we have been strengthening our collaboration, especially in terms of our live streaming content and capabilities. To better serve our users and broadcasters, we are working closely with Tencent across areas such as games, esports, and AI technology, as well as developing new features, products, and services. With Tencent’s strong support and massive user community, we believe we are well-positioned to strengthen our leadership in game live streaming and capture more opportunities across the gaming value chain.”
Note: The Esports Observer used the exchange rate in effect as of May 22 at a rate of 7.13555 RMB to $1 USD for currency conversions in this article.
