视频付费迎黄金期？爱奇艺会员规模首破亿 – The Beijing News
What happened: Video-streaming platform iQiyi reached 100 million paying subscribers on June 22, according to a report from The Beijing News. According to the company, the increase in subscribers was driven primarily by growth in its over-30 segment and those living in lower-tier cities. As of the end of Q1 2019, iQiyi had nearly 97 million subscribers, 98.6% of whom were paying users, the company’s earnings results show.
Why it’s important: iQiyi’s subscription revenue surpassed online advertising revenue for the first time in 2018, reaching RMB 10.60 billion (around $1.54 billion) and accounting for 42% of the company’s total revenue. According to CEO Gong Yu, the growth in paying users was driven by its high quality, original content offerings and growing acceptance of paid services among Chinese netizens. iQiyi has now taken the lead against its biggest rival, Tencent Video, which had 89 million paying subscribers as of the end of Q1 2019.