Kuaishou Set for Its Largest Organizational Restructuring of the Year

In a significant organizational overhaul, Kuaishou, the popular Chinese short-video platform, announced extensive restructuring across its main site, e-commerce, and commercialization operations, as reported by Chinese news outlet Jiemian. The announcement, made via an internal email on December 7th, marks the most comprehensive reshuffle the company has seen this year.

Under the new structure, the Local Consumer Business Department, formerly under Kuaishou’s Commercialization Business Division, is now shifted to the main site. It has been rebranded as the Recruitment and Real Estate Business Department, overseeing recruitment and property-related operations. As part of the personnel reshuffle, Li Huan is appointed as the head of this newly formed department, reporting directly to Kuaishou’s Senior Vice President, Yu Yue. Consequently, Li will no longer head the Talent Ecology and Content Operations Department and the Distribution Business Department under the E-commerce Business Division.

Interestingly, Kuaishou’s real estate business has seen rapid growth this year, despite the overall real estate sector’s downturn in China. The company’s property transaction volume in Q3 alone has already outpaced last year’s total. As per Kuaishou’s November 21st statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, its real estate venture, “Ideal Home,” recorded a cumulative transaction volume exceeding RMB 14 billion in Q3 2023. Earlier this year, on February 17th, Liu Xiao, Head of Kuaishou’s Real Estate Business Center, revealed at the 2022 Kuaishou Ideal Home Real Estate Summary Conference that the platform’s total property transaction volume last year had surpassed RMB 10 billion.

According to its latest unaudited financial report, Kuaishou posted a robust 20.8% year-on-year increase in its Q3 revenue, reaching RMB 27.9 billion ($4.4 billion). The firm’s net profit stood at RMB 2.18 billion ($344 million), with an adjusted net profit of RMB 3.2 billion ($505 million). This financial surge is attributed to the strong performance of its core divisions, including online marketing, e-commerce, and live streaming.

In particular, Kuaishou’s e-commerce sector reported impressive GMV figures for the first three quarters of the year, recording RMB 224.8 billion ($35.5 billion), RMB 265.5 billion ($41.9 billion), and RMB 290.2 billion ($45.8 billion) respectively. These figures represent an encouraging year-on-year growth of 28.4%, 39%, and 30.4%, demonstrating a steady upward trend even during the third quarter, typically considered a lean period for e-commerce.

Kuaishou’s local life business team has also expanded by over 20% in the past six months, extending its services to all first-tier cities and 15 new first-tier cities. To further facilitate local merchants, Kuaishou launched a dedicated app, “Kuaishou Local Merchant,” aimed at addressing local life scenario issues.

In addition to local life heavyweights such as Meituan, platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu have also been making strides in the market. Douyin’s life service, for instance, saw its paid GMV exceed RMB 100 billion ($15.8 billion) in H1.

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