The rumor of Weibo’s acquisition of its live streaming partner Yizhibo recorded further verification as sources close to the matter told local media that Yizhibo’s business has been integrated into the Chinese Twitter-like platform. While the teams of the two businesses will still run independently, Yizhibo has moved into Sina’s office and it’s expected to enter an in-depth cooperation with Weibo in the future, the source added.
The acquisition will help create a stronger social-interaction based business model for both parties where Yizhibo could further leverage Weibo’s huge traffic and massive social influence and Weibo keep traction with quality video content.
Founded in 2011, Yixia Technology, the parent company of Yizhibo, is one of the leading video app developers to have ridden China’s video and live-streaming boom. In addition to Yizhibo, Yixia Technology is also known for other two flagship products of Miaopai, a leading video clip editing and sharing app, and video-dubbing app Xiaokaxiu.
In addition to China’s live streaming and video boom, Yixia Technology’s growth has been fueled by its integration into its strategic investor Weibo for content creation as well as circulation. It’s been a win-win deal for the two companies so far, where increasing quality content helped the social networking giant to regain momentum over the past two years.
But as the heat surrounding the once red-hot live streaming industry cools down, market consolidation starts and it leaves little time for companies that fail to keep up the pace. Yizhibo has suffered from sluggish growth over the past year. Data from Quest Mobile shows that Yizhibo topped China’s live streaming app list with 59.7 million monthly active users in September last year, but data from Jiguang shows it has disappeared from the top 7 list in June 2018.
While market leaders such as Huya and Douyu may still stand a chance with followup investment and IPOs, smaller players are seeking for acquisitions or mergers. Live streaming platform Huajiao merged with 6.cn June this year.
The troubled market has received further blows from tightening content purge from the state. Yixia Technology’s Miaopai and Yizhibo are among the apps that are been admonished by the government for vulgar contents.