Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) ( Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) . SZ), telling a new story.
On April 10, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) subsidiary Yuanwang network disclosed the identity information of the virtual digital human “Kong Xiang” and its subsequent development plan. It is reported that Kong Xiang, as the first virtual digital person launched by Yuanwang network, appeared in a short play with his partner Jia Nailiang. On April 9, guanxuan became the first virtual human brand best friend of three beauty brands, including silefu, Weizi and NYX.
Yuanwang network said that it has further established a new path for the upgrading of digital technology companies. Xie Rudong, chairman of Yuanwang network, said that the live broadcast e-commerce has accelerated to bid farewell to the barbaric growth state and stepped into the right track of standardized and sustainable development.
“As a digital technology enterprise, we will further realize the innovative combination with AI, IOT and other cutting-edge technologies on the premise of compliance development.” Xie Rudong said.
However, before the official announcement of the new positioning of “digital technology enterprise”, the more well-known identity of Yuanwang network was an MCN organization.
According to public information, Hangzhou Yuanwang Network Technology Co., Ltd. was established in November 2010. In 2018, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) began to issue relevant announcements and planned to acquire Yuanwang network. By bringing Yuanwang network into its arms, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) transformed from a traditional shoe enterprise to an Internet marketing service enterprise, thus changing from “real” to “virtual”.
Through the transformation of Internet marketing service enterprises, the former “first share of women’s shoes” Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) once became a “online popular concept stock”. For a time, the stock price was “evil”. On December 13, 2019, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) sounded the horn of this round of rise with the daily limit. On January 17, 2020, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) share price climbed to 36.56 yuan. On the first day of listing that year, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) ‘s closing price was only 12.85 yuanp align=”center” style=”text-align:center;”> Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) stock price trend
Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) this road of “online popularity” has been criticized by the outside world, but it has also brought higher attention to this former traditional shoe enterprise. With the further decoupling from women’s shoes business, the dramatic change of course in recent years also doomed the future fate of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) and highly bound it with the fate of live e-commerce track.
Now, the subsidiary Yuanwang network begins to tell a new digital story. It is worth mentioning that at present, the e-commerce live studio will become the benchmark scene of the commercialization path of virtual digital people. Can virtual digital people really bring new atmosphere to the changeable live e-commerce track?
With regard to the question of “whether to invest heavily in virtual digital human technology in the future”, he Jianfeng, Secretary of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) board of directors, told the reporter of daily economic news that virtual digital human is an expansion and attempt of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) in business, and it is difficult to determine whether to invest heavily, “What will be done in the future depends on the effect of the previous work, the development of technology, the acceptance of technology and business by consumers and market feedback.”
Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) from “real” to “virtual”
In the field of traditional Chinese women’s shoes, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) can be regarded as having a sense of existence.
Public information shows that Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) was founded in 1993, and the next year, st&sat, the first store, opened in Shenyang. This small store of more than 20 square meters is not only the starting point of the development of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) women’s shoes, but also the beginning of the chain operation of China’s shoe industry.
In 2009, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) was listed. It is the first women’s shoe enterprise listed on A-share market in China. Therefore, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) has long been known as “the first share of women’s shoes”. In 2009, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) had a revenue of 880 million yuan and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 114 million yuan.
However, in the following years, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) the net profit attributable to the parent company has been in a continuous decline. Even in 2017, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) showed huge losses, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was -352 million yuan.
While the net profit of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) ‘s return to the parent company has been declining all the way, China’s traditional women’s shoes industry is also in turmoil. Under the impact of e-commerce and the change of consumers’ tastes, the traditional retail industry was forced to transform and upgrade, and the traditional women’s shoes industry based on offline retail stores entered a trough.
Even the industry leader was once struggling. After years of losses, in July 2017, “shoe king” Belle International completed privatization at the price of HK $53.1 billion and withdrew from the market. Belle’s delisting has put a trace of tragic color on the traditional women’s shoes industry.
Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) have to seriously think about their own destiny. The reporter of the daily economic news noted that Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) has completed several “major events” since 2015. Since then, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) has become more and more distant from the identity of traditional shoe enterprises.
In 2016, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) determined the new strategic development direction of “building a fashion IP ecosystem”. Meanwhile, the company’s name was officially changed from “Foshan Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) Shoes Co., Ltd.” to ” Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) “.
On January 17, 2020, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) announced that it had completed the acquisition of 83% equity of fashion Fengxun and 80% equity of Beijing Shixin, and terminated the acquisition of the remaining shares because the funds were not available as planned. However, the financial statements of the two companies have long been consolidated.
According to the financial report data of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) 2019, the operating revenue of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) increased to 2.092 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.57%; The attributable net profit reached 150 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 158196% Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) the transformation of performance is related to the merger of the acquisition of Yuanwang network into the scope of consolidated statementsp align=”center” style=”text-align:center;”> Screenshot from Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) 2019 financial report
In the 2019 annual report, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) took the mobile Internet business as one of the main businesses other than fashion women’s shoes for the first time, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) said that the mobile Internet business was mainly carried out through Yuanwang network acquired in 2019 and fashion new media companies fashion Fengxun and Beijing Shixin acquired in 2017.
At present, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) has been firmly transformed: after selling the production department of shoes business two years ago, on the evening of January 18 this year, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) announced that it plans to package and sell the business and assets related to shoe sales other than brand trademarks, focusing on the “light” asset operation mode of brand authorization, brand management and supply chain services.
Ma Gang, an independent commentator on the garment industry, told the reporter of the daily economic news that the transformation is a long process and Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) is gradually switching the track, which is related to the enterprise’s macro judgment, strategic choice and capital construction. “Changing the track is the best choice made by the enterprise based on its own resources, which does not mean that the traditional shoe industry will not work.”
Does Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) , which has changed from “heavy” to “light”, have any prospects in women’s shoes business? In this regard, Ma Gang believes that if the performance does not improve, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) may not have a chance.
Yuanwang network starts singing “digital Rhapsody”
As far as the remote network is concerned, it has been moving frequently in recent years.
Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) said that Yuanwang network has arranged live broadcast e-commerce since 2019, signed artists to bring goods in the first half of 2019, trained its own online celebrities in the second half of 2019, and promoted the cultivation of anchor through signing stars in the early stage. After the rise of “Yu eldest childe”, a complete supply chain system has been established; In 2021, the company signed several new stars, and in June, the company decided to expand in the chattering and become the tiktok 818.
According to the data, in 2021, Yuanwang network cooperated with 130 + anchors and completed more than 3000 live broadcasts; Up to now, it has cooperated with more than 20000 well-known brands at home and abroad, and has completed a total of 63000 + commodity promotion for brands.
It can be seen from the official website of Yuanwang network that its cooperative artists include more than 30 artists such as Wang Zulan, Zhang Yuxi, Cecilia Cheung, Yinger, Lou Yixiao, Ni Hongjie, Shen Tao, Chen Yiru and Jia Nailiang, as well as more than 100 anchor talents such as eldest childe Yu and Li xuanzhuo.
In addition, Yuanwang network has created a unique “Yuanwang cloud” and accelerated the incubation of live broadcast operation teams. The preparation period for novice anchor has been up to 3 months, and now it can start broadcasting in 7 days.
On April 10, Yuanwang network also disclosed the identity information of the recent virtual digital man “Kong Xiang” and its follow-up development plan. For the future positioning of “Kong Xiang”, Yuanwang network said that in the future, she will not only enable live scenes, but also appear in film and television dramas and variety shows to create more interesting content forms, “committed to becoming a live e-commerce trend navigator and a future prospect star”.
In addition, Yuanwang network also announced the so-called “twin anchor technology”, a new play method of live e-commerce. According to its introduction, through AI deep learning, this technology aims to make the expression and facial detail positioning of the model fully reach the synchronous state of real performers, and can realize the “replication” of the anchor in short video, live broadcast and TVC.
For the role of “twin anchor technology”, Yuanwang network said that twin anchor is the continuation of the career of existing stock anchor. For new anchor, it can prevent the loss in the future, and the production cycle is shorter and the production cost is low. It takes only one day to generate a virtual talent and one month to generate a high-quality talent.
For the launch of virtual digital human and “twin anchor technology” by Yuanwang network at this time, Internet industry observer Zhang Shule told the reporter of daily economic news that virtual digital human is a new layout point. Capable institutions will choose to occupy the sub layout first whether they touch the ceiling or fall into the neck of the bottle. Previously, traditional media such as radio and television and mobile were carrying out similar layout, indicating that this is also the general trend of the industry.
It is worth mentioning that Yuanwang network also officially announced the new positioning of “digital technology enterprise”, which also has the meaning of transformation.
Zhang Shule said that at the current stage, MCN institutions do have many problems and rely too much on the drive of individual head online celebrities. “Under its loose organizational structure, the imperfect form of brokers with more commission and less service makes this Internet thinking broker ecosystem lack of growth ability. In addition, due to the lack of prosperous cycle of head online celebrities, it is inevitable that both prosperity and loss will occur.”
At the same time, the industry is more or less skeptical about the transformation of Yuanwang network.
Zhang Shule believes that relying on virtual digital people to realize transformation is obviously just a “story”, and it is easy to turn into an “accident” because the profit prospect of the whole virtual digital people has not been opened and it is difficult to copy the very few first sound future and luotianyi model.
“The live e-commerce track is changing from popularity drainage to word-of-mouth. With the noise passing, the lowest price of the whole network has become a thing of the past. It is bound to return to the marketing method of real shopping guidance with experience and word-of-mouth. The addition of virtual digital people will not change this trend. If it is only used as a gimmick, it will add icing on the cake, and the cost is higher. Diluting on goods will not help ‘cheap beauty’.” Zhang Shule said.
Cui Lili, executive director of the e-commerce Institute of Shanghai University of Finance and economics, told the daily economic news that live e-commerce is moving towards standardization. “Virtual digital people are divided into many types. The prospect mainly depends on what type of virtual digital people enterprises adopt, whether they are customer service type or human led type. The human led type may be a little attractive.”
It is worth mentioning that many Internet manufacturers have entered the competition of virtual digital man track for a long time. Bruce Lee, a researcher at Alibaba and head of digital human technology, once said in an exclusive interview with the reporter of the daily economic news that the virtual digital human is currently in a “value verification” stage. “The outside world is very optimistic about the prospect of virtual digital human, but it is still in the stage of large investment.”
Bruce Lee mentioned that Alibaba has tried to implement the virtual digital human application in the scene of Taobao live broadcast. “At the current stage, more than 600 businesses are trying our virtual anchor, and more than 200 are broadcasting every day.”
However, the prospect of virtual digital human is worth looking forward to.
Bruce Lee believes that for virtual digital people, the e-commerce live room is a proven and feasible commercialization scenario. In terms of e-commerce related scenarios alone, Bruce Lee predicts that virtual digital people can reach a market space of 70 billion to 100 billion a year within five years.
“Yuan universe” takes over “net red”. Can you continue to write the myth of “demon stock”
Looking at the network, the story about “virtual digital man” starts at this time, which is more or less thought-provoking.
When talking about virtual digital human, the outside world often brings up another hot concept “meta universe” at the same time.
Feng Yanjiao, partner of CIC insight consulting, once told the reporter of the daily economic news that the meta universe is a scene, and the virtual digital human is an important part of it. “The presentation of the scene of metauniverse often requires the participation of virtual digital people, but virtual people can also be applied to other scenes, such as enterprise intelligent marketing, customer service, etc.” Feng Yanjiao said.
As for whether the introduction of virtual digital human related business is related to the concept of “meta universe”, he Jianfeng, Secretary of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) board of directors, told reporters: “this requires investors to judge by themselves.”
Today, the share price trend of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) has tended to be flat. On April 11, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) closed at 15.55 yuan, down 8.69%. On April 12, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) closed at 14.87 yuan, down 4.37%.
Shen Meng, director of Xiangsong capital, told the daily economic news that Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) has the name of “demon stock”, indicating that there has been a record of abnormal fluctuations in the market before.
“Secondly, both virtual digital people and metauniverse will not form a revenue base for stable growth in the short term due to the restrictions of technology and demand, which is not conducive to the performance of listed companies. Therefore, the concept of rub heat may fluctuate in the secondary market in a short time, but it is not helpful for long-term business development.” Shen Meng said.
It is worth mentioning that the traditional women’s shoes business abandoned by Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) is showing signs of recovery.
Recently, Belle’s shoe and clothing business department submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the name of “Belle fashion”, which is another new move of Belle International after the privatization and delisting of Hong Kong stocks in July 2017.
Belle is getting out of trouble. Belle’s operating revenue in the first nine months of fiscal 2019, fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021 was 20.114 billion yuan, 21.737 billion yuan and 17.627 billion yuan respectively. The net profit was 1.665 billion yuan, 2.616 billion yuan and 2.297 billion yuan respectively.
The gloomy women’s shoe track may have dawned. However, in the view of people in the industry, even if Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) has always adhered to the women’s shoe track, it may not be able to fight a “turnaround”.
“Each enterprise has different resources, and Belle’s performance is not hard work. It is the result of a series of adjustment and optimization, and the digital transformation is indispensable.” Ma Gang said that for traditional shoe enterprises, the difficulty of digital transformation is not great. “If there are cognitive deviations and do not have digital literacy, what about transformation? The boss and the team have different cognition of digital, the team’s digital literacy is uneven, and the lack of patience and participation in digital are all difficulties.”
On April 9, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) released the performance express for 2021, which disclosed that the operating revenue increased by 30.81% year-on-year to 2.814 billion yuan, and the net loss recorded 704 million yuan. According to the report, the impact of the epidemic has a great impact on offline commercial sales, which has a great impact on the digestion of the company’s footwear inventory. In addition, the company’s additional expenses arising from business transformation have led to the operating loss of the footwear business throughout the year.
On the previous day, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) just released the performance forecast for the first quarter of 2022, with an estimated profit of 80 million yuan to 120 million yuan. As for the reasons for the growth, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) said that the loss of footwear business has narrowed significantly, the relevant live e-commerce has achieved a year-on-year increase of about 60% in Gmv, and the profit scale of the company’s Internet marketing business has achieved a large growth.
Up to now, the transformation of Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) has been firmly established Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) in a record of investor relations activities, the company has focused on the transformation from asset heavy to asset light operation mode since 2015. The selling subsidiaries no longer retain the production function. At present, the transformation has been basically in place, the number of personnel has been reduced from 8000 to hundreds, and only the remaining inventory and some direct stores.
Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) can be regarded as having courage to escape from the homogenization competition in the footwear industry. Stepping on the “tuyere” of live e-commerce, Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) can also be regarded as timely. However, when we officially bid farewell to the business and assets related to footwear sales, the difficulties in moving from Foshan to the whole country left enough confidence and wisdom for Saturday Co.Ltd(002291) to embark on a new journey?
