Chinese Streaming Platform Douyu Lists on NASDAQ

Douyu, the game live streaming company, has officially gone public on NASDAQ on July 17, trading under the ticker symbol of “DOYU”. The stock price of Douyu was $11.5, which was the same with the issue price. Its total market capitalization has reached $3.73 billion. The underwriters are Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan., Merrill Lynch and CMBI.

Chen Shaojie, founder and CEO of Douyu, expressed his gratitude towards the 6.5 million streamers as well as 280 million registered users on the platform at the IPO ceremony.

According to Tianyancha, before going public, Douyu has gone through six rounds of financing, with the latest raising $640 million from Tencent in 2018. Tencent is now the largest shareholder of Douyu, holding 43.2 percent of the total shares.

As written in its updated prospectus, against the backdrop of e-sports’ booming popularity, China now has a massive and growing gamer community that is seeking interactive and engaging entertainment through game live streaming. According to iResearch, China is the world’s largest game-centric live streaming market, with approximately 4.9 times the monthly active users (MAU) of the U.S. market in 2018. Revenue from China’s game-centric live streaming market is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24.7 percent from 2018 to 2023, which is nearly twice the expected growth rate of the non-game-centric live streaming market.

SEE ALSO: Here is What You Need to Know About Douyu, Chinese Streaming Unicorn Eyeing US IPO

According to its prospectus, Douyu‘s revenue has increased from 666.5 million yuan for the first quarter that ended on March 31, 2018 to 1,489.1 million yuan ($221.9 million) for the same period of 2019. The company has achieved net income of 18.2 million yuan ($2.7 million) in the first quarter of 2019, compared with net loss of 155.7 million yuan for the same period of 2018.

As of March 31, 2019, Douyu’s streamer pyramid consisted of 6.5 million registered streamers, including more than 6,500 top streamers, each of whom directly entered into an exclusive contract with the company. Approximately 491,000 streamers are managed through talent agencies and the rest are self-registered streamers.