Luo Yonghao, exploding a market value of 3.1 billion

In December last year, the "first stock of women's shoes" was renamed "Yaowang Technology" on Saturday, shortly after it became the "first stock of live e-commerce".

Live broadcast new dark horse "New Oriental Online" has been renamed "Oriental Selection", and All in live broadcast e-commerce business.

From "Yaowang Technology" to "Oriental Selection", two listed companies have been born in the live broadcast industry. Now it is the turn of "making a friend" to take over the "third stock of live e-commerce"!

01. "The third live streaming stock", Luo Yonghao successfully started his business

A few days ago, on May 10, "Century Ruike", a company listed on the Hong Kong stock market, suddenly announced that it would change its name to "Jiaoge Friends Holdings Limited", and its English name was also changed to "Be Friends Holdings Limited".

For a moment, it caused heated discussion in the market. The stock market closed on the same day, and Century Ruike's share price rose 7.01% to HK$2.29 per share, with a total market value of HK$3.173 billion.

It is understood that Century Ruike has completed the full acquisition of "Make a Friend" and has the core IP of "Make a Friend" and all related accounts.

This means that the "Make a Friend" who has been at the top of the live streaming rankings for a long time was officially included in the company by Century Ruike and successfully listed on the Hong Kong stock market through a backdoor listing.

The operating entity of "Make a Friend" "Beijing Jiaoke a Friend Digital Technology Co., Ltd.", has undergone large-scale industrial and commercial changes.

Huang He withdrew from the legal representative and was taken over by Zhao Huili, executive director of Century Ruike;

The positions of director (director), manager and supervisor were also changed from Huang He and Zhou Yanqiao to Wu Rong and Zhao Huili;

The wholly-owned shareholder has been changed from "Chengdu Starry Sky Ambition" to "Yijiang Future" (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Century Ruike);

The type of enterprise has been changed from a "limited liability company (soon proprietorship for legal person)" to a "limited liability company (soon proprietorship for foreign-invested enterprises).

At this point, this company, born because Luo Yonghao was born to pay off his 600 million yuan debt, has quietly become the "third live streaming stock" that cannot be underestimated in the live streaming e-commerce industry.

02. A tangled relationship

"The new corporate image is very consistent with the market style of the Group's new media business, which can enable the market and shareholders to better understand the situation of the Group and enable the Group to seize potential business opportunities."

Century Ruike has conducted in-depth cooperation with making friends and is the operator of many Douyin accounts.

His boss is named " Li Jun ", and he is also the actual controller of "Hangzhou Jinwei Supply Chain Information Service Co., Ltd.", a long-term supply chain service provider for the live broadcast room of "Make a Friend".

In 2020, the same year that Luo Yonghao began to broadcast live on Douyin, Li Jun served as a legal person and established this supply chain company. Until now, he is the only source of goods in the live broadcast room.

Some media said that Li Jun is Luo Yonghao's "noble man". He not only taught Luo Yonghao how to do live e-commerce, but also solved the most important supply problem.

In August last year, Century Ruike signed an annual cooperation agreement with Douyin E-commerce, with a GMV expected to be no less than 5 billion yuan in 12 months.

And the pressure from this agreement naturally gave him "making friends".

In the same month of the same year, Century Ruike won the exclusive operation cooperation agreement of "Make a Friend" for five years, and during Double 11, it led the head "Ace anchor" Luo Yonghao to enter Taobao live broadcast.

Not only that, Li Jun also participated in the overseas business of "making friends".

It can be said that Li Jun is not only Luo Yonghao's "noble man", but also the man behind "making friends".

After all, it is rare for listed companies to sign annual agreements with Douyin. It is precisely because of this that Li Jun can bring more resources and support to "make friends".

It is reported that in 2022, Century Ruike's annual live e-commerce business operation results exceeded 7 billion yuan, and both revenue and gross profit achieved a three-digit proportion growth; while the revenue of new media services from 2019 to 2021 was 1.9 million, 5.9 million, and 22 million respectively.

It is not difficult to see that the relationship between "making a friend" and Century Ruike is not just "Bo Le" and "Qianlima". Strictly speaking, it is the mutual success of each other, or the wave of live broadcasts and digitalization, which has made Luo Yonghao and Century Ruike.

03. Where is the next "Luo Yonghao"

Since April 1, 2020, Luo Yonghao has started his first live broadcast on Douyin, winning a record of 3 billion GMV, establishing his position as the number one in Douyin's sales.

As time goes by, in 2022, after writing the finale for "Return to Truth", Luo Yonghao gradually faded out of the live broadcast room, and Luo Yonghao is rarely seen in the live broadcast room matrix of "Make a Friend".

Nowadays, Luo Yonghao has devoted most of his personal energy to AR entrepreneurship, which is known as the "last entrepreneurship", and has also received US$50 million in financing.

And the one he raised to "make friends" also completed a backdoor listing. For Luo Yonghao, who was ridiculed as the "industry light", he finally tasted the result of "successful entrepreneuriality".

However, "Make a Friend" does not mean that you can rest assured after it goes public.

Some industry insiders believe that the advantage of "making friends" lies in the residual marketing effect of the IP "Luo Yonghao" , but this IP has doubts about the durability of the live broadcast business support, and the brand's sustainability is not as good as Oriental Selection and TVB.

In fact, although live e-commerce with capital support has more trial and error costs, the fundamental reason for live e-commerce is content creation itself.

"Make a friend" once took advantage of the opportunity to live broadcast knowledge and staged a variety show that "Friends, please listen to the topic". Data-wise, these measures are useful, but not obvious.

It is reported that the GMV of "Oriental Selection" in the past three months was 2 billion yuan, while the "making friends" during the same period was less than 1 billion yuan.

Some media said that in the more than 100 days after Luo Yonghao stepped down from the Internet, the average number of viewers in the live broadcast room of a friend dropped to 1.105 million, and the live broadcast sales in the past 30 days hovered between 100 million and 250 million yuan.

It is obvious that "making friends" who left Luo Yonghao has fallen into a whirlpool of weak growth and dependence on Internet celebrities. For Luo Yonghao, "making a friend" is just a link in the script "real and true" and its importance is far less important than "the last business start-up".

However, with the help of capital, "making friends" has the ability to overtake on the curve. But whether the result can be done will be left to time to answer.