Qihoo Web game ARPU data questioned: far exceeding average level

http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/17197.html "> Beijing time July 24 Morning News, the U.S. financial investment blog Seeking Alpha Monday published investor Matt Berry (Matt Berry), the 360 per-user average income (ARPU) data was challenged.

Berry believes that the Qihoo offers no big difference between the web game and competitors. Screenshots show that Qihoo and the web games provided by everyone are basically the same, while other platforms offer similar games. For example, a well-known web game "Immortal Road" by a number of Web site operations, in addition to Qihoo also includes Baidu games, 616wan, 65wan and 01yo more than 20 operators. Qihoo CFO said that the top 10 games brought 60% to 70% of the revenue from the web game, but the top 16 games on the Qihoo platform are operated by a number of operators.

On the other hand, Qihoo's web game revenue is quite different from that of its rivals. According to the statistics of 7 Chinese online gaming companies, the average monthly ARPU of web games is 64.5 yuan. Qihoo said the company's gaming business was different from other companies and was therefore not suitable for comparison.

Qihoo May said that the company's web game business monthly ARPU 440 Yuan. Even if this data does not take into account the revenue split between developers, Qihoo's monthly ARPU of the business also exceeds 300 yuan. and 7 competitors, including Shanda games, everyone, giant network, swim, air network, Tencent and Jinshan Web game business monthly ARPU only less than 70 yuan.

Berry said the Qihoo did not fully clarify the issue in its filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and in response to queries. In a document submitted to the SEC in December 2011, Qihoo said the monthly ARPU of the web game was stable at 380 yuan. This May, Qihoo said the March quarter of the ARPU reached 440 yuan. The difference between the two figures was surprising, and Qihoo did not make any further explanations.

Although Qihoo said the company's web-game revenues were in line with other Chinese websites, and some analysts made similar comments, Berry said this was not the case.

The ARPU of Qihoo's web game was originally from the shorting agency, Citron. Qihoo responded that the company's revenue level was consistent with its rivals, but did not disclose details. Qihoo also said the company's gaming business was unique, that it did not offer large multiplayer online games (MMOGs).

Berry believes that the tiger's claim is questionable, because MMOGs game revenue is usually higher than casual games. He quoted Tencent deputy CFO Ronghan said that Tencent MMOGs game ARPU for 90 to 130 yuan per quarter, while senior casual games for 50 to 95 yuan. As a result, Qihoo's game business ARPU data is actually inconsistent with competitors.

Berry points out that ARPU does not equate to revenue, but ARPU provides the information the player spends on the game. According to People's Daily reports, the monthly salary of Chinese new graduates in 2011 is 2500 yuan, which is unlikely to cost more than 400 yuan a month in the game.