Thunder drop from the listing price really safe?

Beijing News reporter Lin Qiling intern Liu Mu

U.S. local time on June 24, another Internet "veterans" successfully landed on NASDAQ.

Zou Shenglong, founder of Thunder, faced the question of "what are the psychological feelings of going to the US market twice?"

Unlike other entrepreneurs who led the team to the US market, Zou Shenglong did not show much joy on that day. Media outlets are located in a small office within its PR agency, packed with reporters from all walks of life. Thunder employees around the body, there is no listing of the excitement.

Reporters kept asking Zou Shenglong, Thunder future development space where? How to maintain performance growth? Zou Shenglong on these issues only "mobile Internet is the direction" with.

However, the question did not disappear. "Net net" broken arm listed Thunder, but also as in the past to attract users? Membership fee income accounted for more than half of Thunder, how to deal with this situation?

"Since the drop price" of the market

June 24, Thunder listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in the United States, the first day closed at 14.90 US dollars, up 24.17% over the issue price. By closing price, the current market value of Thunder is 1.03 billion US dollars.

As a result, Zou Shenglong, the founder of Xunlei, which owns 9.5% of the shares, has achieved a value of 97.85 million U.S. dollars. In the first 3 months of the IPO, Xiaomi, which invested 200 million U.S. dollars, owns 31.8% of the shares and the market value of the shares reached 327 million U.S. dollars.

And another "veteran" Zhaopin brokerage arm listed similar story, Thunder listing of the road full of twists and turns.

And this round of the tide to the United States this weekend Sina microblogging, the United States gifted goods, Cheetah Mobile, Thunder is undoubtedly an "old man." It was founded in 2002 by Zou Shenglong and Cheng Hao co-founder, to provide users with video acceleration download service.

After twists and turns to become the domestic PC client download boss, 2011 Thunder for the first time to the United States market. In the road show, the capital market valuation reached 1.5 billion to 2 billion US dollars. However, the Chinese concept stocks winter suddenly come. On the one hand, financial meltdown broke out on the one hand, Alipay VIE incident triggered a crisis of integrity, the annual maximum IPO plummeted 60% and a series of negative events in the capital market so that Thunder faced a valuation cutback. On the other hand, the copyright dispute in the video business also directly led to Thunder "value is seriously underestimated," Thunder to abandon the market.

Afterward, Zou Shenglong stressed: "If we take the $ 700,000,000 valuation is absolutely feasible."

After a lapse of three years, in a favorable environment, Thunder broke through IPOs for two times, but failed to win back a decent valuation. It is still being questioned "bloody market."

Prior to the listing, Thunder completed five rounds of financing, the total amount of financing over 500 million US dollars. After the listing, Thunder market value of only 1 billion US dollars.

From the perspective of capital operation, the Thunder listed is not a "successful" market. Now Zou Shenglong chose to compromise, once again miss the window period, it is hard to say there is no chance for Thunder IPO.

Zou Shenglong said: "I hope to give Thunder some time to see the outcome," the reporter called the "listed market value below expectations."

Listing costs: resources are "net"

Copyright is Thunder listed the primary obstacle. In order to successfully go to the United States to market, Thunder had a big purge of its products with hidden copyright issues.

On the eve of Thunder listing, Thunder users found that they can download fewer resources, some of the original resources can be downloaded offline, and now can not be downloaded. While many paid members also found that although some movie resources can be found, but after clicking but shows "the resource is reported, can not be downloaded."

Users initially speculated that because of "net net action", the site temporary shelves part of the resources. Then users found that some resources may not be available after Thunder.

In April this year, Thunder cleaned up many popular U.S. dramas on the grounds of "relevant policies and other reasons." Earlier this month, Thunder and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) signed an agreement to increase the protection of genuine content, prohibiting users from illegally downloading the Association's member units of the film and television programs.

To this end, Thunder also said it will establish a content identification technology system to ensure that downloads of the Thunder through the film and television works copyright is legally authorized. The direct result of this move is that at present some of the film and television resources on the Internet have been banned by Thunder. Thunder and even cleared up some of the resources users store in the cloud.

Interestingly, at the end of October last year, the National Motion Pictures Association set up a blacklist of illegally distributing films and television programs around the world. Among them, domestic websites such as Thunder, Fast Broadcasting and Everyone Television were among the list. The two sides let go before the hatchet, coupled with a strong sense of copyright protection in the US capital markets, Thunder apparently made a "sacrifice" for the listing in the United States.

However, Thunder paid subscribers are unwilling to "sacrifice", they just pay for those "resources", Thunder now deleted the resources, undermining their "interests."

In the past two months, open Thunder official website forum, full screen members are Tucao posts, a large number of users require "member refund" and called for "unloading Thunder."

In fact, as bandwidth continues to increase, the value of downloading software is rapidly declining, with more and more users using their browsers to watch videos and download directly. If you do not provide the "scarce resources" your users need, the value of downloading the software is dramatically reduced.

"Piracy bonus" disappears

Thunder listed on the first day of the share price of 24.17% higher than the issue price. To this end Thunder released news that "Thunder shares on the first day of soaring stock prices, the cloud story much favored capital markets."

However, investors believe that Thunder's stock needs to be cautious buy.

According to Thunder prospectus disclosure of information, Thunder currently has three profit channels: membership fee income, online advertising and Internet value-added services.

Membership fee income is the most important source of revenue for Thunder, including download of green channel, off-line download and cloud broadcasting. The business recorded revenue of 86.73 million US dollars in 2013, accounting for 48.1% of the total revenue. The first quarter of 2014 membership fee accounted for 60.3% of Thunder revenue, the growth rate is obvious.

As of March 31, 2014, Thunder has approximately 5.2 million paid member users. IResearch data show that Thunder Thunder accelerated monthly active users reached 142 million, in cloud-accelerated products and services market share reached 81.4%.

Analysts said Thunder reliance on the members become stronger, but also become a hidden danger of its profit model.

Thunder after the "net net" significantly reduced the attractiveness of users. Many users in the social media and Thunder official forum said they will not buy Thunder member services.

Members expected fee income expected at the same time, another major source of Thunder - online advertising revenue is not optimistic.

In an interview with the media, Thunder Rain Capital CEO Yu Wenhui said: "As early as a few years ago, when the piracy of the video industry flooded, a large number of free content brought free users, and the huge traffic brought by these users generated a huge advertising commercial value , Enough to support its source of profit - this is the video industry, pirate bonuses, but now the situation has changed, without free content, it is impossible to rely on traffic to achieve the advertising industry's main revenue.

According to Yu Wenhui's point of view, the loss of users will make the site traffic decline, causing advertising loss, eventually led to the deterioration of the Thunder business model, and this trend has begun to show.

IResearch data show that Thunder's advertising revenue has declined, last year fell 22%, the first quarter of this year dropped 37%. At the same time, the number of advertisers dropped from 399 last year to 103.

Still kept "fast-broadcasting risk"

Copyright issues Thunder triggered the "domino effect" is far more than these.

Prior to Youku, potatoes and other video sites have gone through a listing of pirated content before cleaning to meet the US market requirements. The practice of these video sites is to use the bulk of the IPO financing for the acquisition of rights to provide users with more video content through formal channels.

However, Thunder listed this round of financing is not enough to support the Thunder for large-scale copyright purchases, while Thunder does not have such a plan.

Ding Tao Road, Academy of Executive Director of the Institute believes that Thunder still has a fatal problem after the listing is not guaranteed that the site is the copyright of the video, which may give Thunder more trouble.

Thunder in self-castration "dog search" and other resources to download the service, in order to circumvent the copyright crackdown, has launched a Thunder fast pass. Thunder fast pass, users can in a relatively private environment, contribute to each other. In fact, Thunder fast pass is a UGC (user generated content) mode file sharing tool.

Ding Tao believes that Thunder fast and fast broadcast like video playback software, like the banner of resource sharing, for the distribution of pornography and pirated content provides a good medium.

On the eve of listing, Ding Tao said he had logged in Thunder fast pass URL, still search many users provided by the various types of pirated content. He believes that in China, Xunlei Thunder fast relying on the ball by the way, allowing users to download the original fiction, movies and other information to get a large number of users, but this approach there is a greater risk.

Extend

Thunder listed millet big profit

Contrast last halt the IPO, Thunder listed the most significant change is the introduction of major shareholder millet. It is generally believed in the industry that the biggest "promoter" that Thunder can successfully go on the market is Lei Jun, chairman of Xiaomi and Xiaomi.

From March to April this year, Thunder completed E-round financing. In this round of financing, Xiaomi subscribed for 27.2% of Thunder shares for a total consideration of 200 million U.S. dollars. At the same time, Jinshan Software, which Lei Jun controlled, has invested 90 million U.S. dollars. Thunder listed, Xiaomi's share of the Thunder will increase from 27.2% to 31.8%, while Jinshan holdings will rise from 12.2% to 13%. Zou Shenglong will hold 9.5%, another founder Cheng Hao shares diluted to 3.8%, the entire board of directors from the original 28.8% to 22.5%.

"Lei Jun system" into the Thunder board

"Lei Jun Department" large-scale presence in the board of directors, as the introduction of millet Thunder, "the price."

After the completion of the E round of financing, Xiaomi co-founder Hongfeng, Wang Chuan and Jinshan Software CEO Zhang Hongjiang joined the Thunder board of directors.

Will this lead to a fall of corporate control? Zou Shenglong said earlier that control does not require equity-strengthening. Many internet-rich companies, including one of the Internet companies in Shenzhen (Tencent), and China's largest e-commerce company (Ali), have their founders in the company office There is no absolute amount of equity, but their influence on the company is beyond doubt.

Interestingly, on the evening of June 24, Thunder submitted a regular document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This humble document discloses the second major change in the shareholding structure of the company: Skyline Global, the principal shareholder, The list disappears, millet, Jinshan's holdings than the Thunder had been expected to shrink the water.

Another highlight of Thunder's newer prospectus is that UC chairman Yu Yongfu first entered the Thunder management list. Yu Yongfu is also "Lei Jun Department" general, Lei Jun also participated in the investment of UC. It is said that Lei Jun booked two Tesla vehicles this year, one for himself and one for Yu Yongfu.

The industry joked that Thunder listed the biggest winner is Lei Jun, Lei Jun Department already has Jinshan software, get together, Cheetah Mobile and Thunder "four carriages", Lei Jun has become the four listed companies, "behind the scenes chairman."

Thunder into millet ecosystem

Thunder listed on the business for up to three years after the IPO was frustrated in 2011. The latest version of the prospectus mentions that Thunder is an Internet platform that enables users to quickly obtain, manage and consume digital media content based on cloud computing technology.

The industry believes that the investment before the IPO 310 million U.S. dollars investment in the Thunder is undoubtedly a dose of "needles", the Thunder has been listed hopeless again saved back. Without millet investment and the previous business cooperation, Thunder want to complete their own efforts to complete the listing of the journey may not be so easy.

Zou Shenglong also acknowledged that it is Xiaomi's opportunity for the entire company to grow rapidly. Xiaomi is the most important partner that Thunder has developed so far and can build a new thunderbolt.

Zou Shenglong said Thunder financing this round will also be used for mobile terminals, including the living room strategy. The future of the company's profit point is the success of the past in the PC Internet, replicated in the mobile Internet and home Internet.

In this regard, Xiaomi can provide fast access to the user's cloud platform Thunder cloud acceleration services. Because millet is not only the most popular mobile phone manufacturer in China at present, but also has the layout of products and platforms such as millet box in the home internet.

It is reported that now Thunder has its "cloud acceleration" technology fully open to the use of millet companies, and millet company also built in its products Thunder Thunder download Thunder to see other related services. Thunder is entering the millet ecosystem.

dynamic

SARFT "New Deal" spread to Thunder

On the eve of the Thunder listing, a documentary document of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television led to worries about the prospects of Internet TV boxes, and Thunder also became a victim.

June 24, the number of companies confirmed that the SARFT Network Division has issued immediate closure of Internet TV terminal products illegal video software download channel letter, requiring the closure of the Internet box video client.

In 2011, SARFT issued Circular 181, requiring Internet TV to connect only to one "Internet TV integrated platform" without any other means of accessing the Internet. This means that Internet TV terminals can only cooperate with Internet TV licensees and may not offer content on the public Internet directly to users.

Prior to this, a large number of Internet companies trying to control the flow of imports through the TV box, the establishment of the TV video service industry chain.

The industry said that entering the TV box is the source of the new profit model Thunder, the SARFT's position so that it was marked with a question mark.

However, the Thunder, the good side is its major shareholder, the future of the important partner Xiaomi basically unswept. LeTV, Xiaomi and other companies have taken part in the market through cooperation with the licensee (CNTV). As long as the LeTV and Xiaomi boxes are not connected to third-party video apps like Youku, they will not be cleared.