Kuaishou Technology, China’s No 2 short video platform behind TikTok’s sister app Douyin, narrowed its losses in the fourth quarter and the whole of 2022 on the back of better-than-expected revenue and record growth in number of users. Beijing-based Kuaishou on Wednesday reported a net loss of 1.5 billion yuan (US$218 million) in the quarter ended December 31, compared with a 6.2 billion yuan loss in the same period in 2021. Fourth-quarter revenue reached 28.3 billion yuan, up 15.8 per cent from 24.4 billion yuan a year earlier, lifted primarily by its online marketing services and live-streaming operations. Its total revenue last quarter was 3.7 per cent ahead of the market’s consensus estimates and “up 3.4 per cent of our estimates”, said Jefferies equity analyst Thomas Chong in a report posted after Kuaishou released its latest financial results. For the full year, the company’s losses narrowed to 13.7 billion yuan from 78 billion yuan in 2021. Operating profit from its domestic segment – a financial gauge that excludes unallocated items, which consist of share-based compensation expenses, other income and other gains – reached 192.1 million yuan last year, compared to an operating loss of 8.7 billion yuan in 2021. The firm’s online marketing services, live streaming and e-commerce businesses helped boost total 2022 revenue to 94.2 billion yuan, a 16.2 per cent increase from 9 81.1 billion yuan the previous year. Total gross merchandise volume of e-commerce transactions facilitated on the Kuaishou platform last year jumped 32.5 per cent to 901.2 billion yuan from 680 billion yuan in 2021. “We embraced the challenges in 2022 with an unyielding commitment to elevating our inclusive and diverse ecosystem and optimising the experiences and returns for our users, content creators, advertisers and merchants,” Kuaishou co-founder and chief executive Cheng Yixiao said in a statement. Hong Kong-listed Kuaishou’s shares were up 1.53 per cent to HK$56.25 at the close of trading on Wednesday. Kuaishou’s latest financial results reflect how the company has remained resilient on the mainland amid a turbulent domestic economy and competition against Douyin, as its main rival’s parent company ByteDance was busy reorganising operations last year. ByteDance, which cut hundreds of jobs across multiple departments at the end of 2022, also initiated lay-offs affecting hundreds of employees at virtual reality headset unit Pico. TikTok, meanwhile, dismissed its remaining employees in India. Kuaishou’s Cheng also said the company namesake app set records in terms of average daily active users (DAUs) and monthly active users (MAUs), as well as average daily time spent per DAU in the fourth quarter. Average DAUs in the past quarter were 366.2 million, a 13.3 per cent increase from a year earlier. Average MAUs were 640 million, up 10.7 per cent from a year ago. The average daily time spent per DAU was 133.9 minutes, compared with 118.9 minutes in the same period in 2021.
China’s No 2 short video platform operator Kuaishou narrows its losses in 2022 amid stiff competition from ByteDance-owned Douyin
