Top iQIYI Highlights of 2022
2022 marked a pivotal year for iQIYI, an innovative market-leading online entertainment service in China, as the company turned profitable for the first time since foundation. With its continued commitment to premium original content production, original IP commercialization, and entertainment technology development, the company executed its strategy with focus and efficiency and further strengthened its competitive edge and market leadership.
Below iQIYI shares with you the top highlights from 2022. In 2023, the company looks forward to creating further value for users, content creators and the industry partners.
iQIYI achieves profitability for the first time and maintains unchallenged market leadership
In 2022, iQIYI completed an iconic turnaround, with the company’s business performances far exceeding the targets set. Not only did the company grow its non-GAAP operating profit for four consecutive questers since Q4 2021, iQIYI also generated positive operating cash flow for two consecutive quarters, achieving over RMB524 million in non-GAAP operating profit in Q3 alone.
More importantly, iQIYI was able to further consolidate its market leadership alongside the improved financial performance, and was recognized by S&P Global Market Intelligence as the most popular streaming service in China.
iQIYI’s premium original content continues to drive the company’s high quality growth
iQIYI has long been committed to creating premium original content that caters to the broadest range of user tastes. Of the 7 blockbuster dramas with a content popularity index of over 10,000 ever premiered in the company’s history, 5 titles— A Lifelong Journey (人世間), Love Between Fairy and Devil (蒼蘭訣), Chasing the Undercurrent (罰罪), New Life Begins(卿卿日常) and Wild Bloom(風(fēng)吹半夏)—were launched this year.
5 titles with a content popularity index of over 10,000
Of the 20 most popular titles streamed in 2022 as identified by Enlightent, a market intelligence agency, 14 were iQIYI original content. The drama A Lifelong Journey tops the chart with over 4.76 billion effective views, followed by New Life Begins with 3.05 billion views and Love Between Fairy and Devil with 2.76 billion views.
The premium quality of iQIYI’s original productions were well noted by critics and viewers alike. Prestigious domestic and overseas prizes, including the China TV Golden Eagle Awards, Flying Apsaras Awards, Golden Angel Award of the Chinese American TV Festival (CATF), Warsaw International Film Festival, Asia Contents Awards of the Busan International Film Festival, and the Macau International TV Festival.
iQIYI is also dedicated to presenting innovative variety shows and promoting the development of the industry. In particular, the Super Sketch Show season 2 scored 8.8 out of 10 on China's mostly used review platform Douban, and The Rap of China 2022 became the most viewed content across platforms with a 18.57% viewing rate in summer 2022.
Hit variety shows of iQIYI
In September, iQIYI announced the upcoming release of 235 new films, drama series, and variety shows at its iJOY Conference. Featuring a range of diversified and extensive genres, the new titles show iQIYI’s commitment to producing premium and innovative original content in the future.
GONG Yu, Founder and CEO of iQIYI at iJOY Conference
iQIYI builds tech-enabled entertainment experiences and furthers its metaverse exploration
iQIYI has long led the industry in leveraging technological advancements and metaverse exploration to expand the possibility of entertainment throughout 2022.
Leveraging virtual production technologies, the company completed the making of Fox Spirit Matchmaker (Yuehong Chapter), China’s first drama series to adopt extended reality (XR) technology in its production in August. Virtual production technologies are now leveraged in several iQIYI original works.
XR virtual production set of Fox Spirit Matchmaker (Yuehong Chapter)
In December, iQIYI released Memoon Player, the world’s first virtual reality (VR) variety game show, the production of which leveraged an array of virtual production technologies, including virtual shooting, virtual games, XR, and holography.
A show participant and his avatar in Memoon Player
iQIYI launched a set of digital collectibles in April, based on the mascot “Kiki”. The set is a collaboration between iQIYI and Baidu, with technical support from XuperChain, a Baidu-developed, highly flexible blockchain architecture. The set includes 12,000 copies of various images of Kiki, with both AI-produced generic copies and specially designed ones that incorporate elements from iQIYI’s hit drama series, variety shows, cross-brand collaborations and more.
The set featuring iQIYI mascot “Kiki”
iQIYI also made continuous strides in VR-related innovations, covering hard- and software. On Dec. 30, iQIYI announced that its Luoyang Virtual Reality (VR) Project would be introduced to Luoyang, Henan Province, the very city whose history inspired the Luoyang IP and Shanghai in the future. Created by the iQIYI Dream Verse studio, the experience represents a unique blend of immersive theatre, role-playing games (RPG), and VR, bringing users on an all-immersive journey that breaks the conceptual bounds between the virtual world and physical reality, powered by the latest advances in AAA gaming, motion capturing, VR redirection and other entertainment technologies.
Luoyang VR Project
In December, iQIYI unveiled QIYU Mix, the company’s first consumer-facing Mix Reality headset. Incorporating elements of augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies, the device marked an exciting addition to iQIYI’s extended reality ecology. According to an IDC report released in March, iQIYI’s QIYU VR products has second largest market share in China, accounting for 27.4% of the VR market.
QIYU Mix, the company’s first consumer-facing Mix Reality headset
iQIYI furthers commitment to original IP development and monetization
Building on the launch of the iQIYI Chinese Historic City Universe (iCHCU) in December 2021, iQIYI made continuous strides throughout 2022 in building up the impact of its original IPs.
Luoyang and The Wind Blows from Longxi, two major installments under the iCHCU
Wind Blows from Longxi, the second installment and a hugely popular addition to the iCHCU was premiered in May, after Luoyang . In January, iQIYI launched its first set of digital collectibles, which was based on the company’s popular original show Luoyang and marked the first period drama-based digital collectibles issued in China. The sets sold out in just seven hours after its release.
First period drama-based digital collectibles issued in China
Twelve projects are under development as part of the iCHCU of Luoyang, ranging from documentaries, animated series, to movies and beyond. iQIYI already premiered a film, animation, documentary, variety show, and other entertainment projects based on the Luoyang IP, in addition to reaching IP licensing agreements with over 20 brands.
Other productions of the iCHCU of Luoyang
The success of the endeavours demonstrates the robust potential of iQIYI’s original IPs, the artistic and commercial values of which the company is deeply committed to continuing to explore.
iQIYI strengthens presence worldwide with quality original content
iQIYI has continued to provide a wide variety of quality original content to global markets.
In March, iQIYI launched on Roku devices in North America, allowing subscribers in the U.S. and Canada to enjoy iQIYI content. The company also announced that its original content would be available in Spanish-speaking regions for the first time.
iQIYI’s app on ROKU
In May, The Wind Blows from Longxi, premiered in global markets. Starting May 12, the series began to air on the Malaysian streaming platform Astro. Going forward, audiences from South Korea, Japan, Australia, regions in the Americas, as well as regions in Africa would also have the opportunity to enjoy the series.
The Wind Blows from Longxi on Astro
In December, iQIYI Light On series The Long Night（沉默的真相）aired on NHK channel, marking the growing influence of the Chinese premium suspense series which made its successful entry into the Japanese market.
The Long Night aired on NHK
iQIYI reaches strategic partnerships to create added user value
Committed to content and technological innovation, iQIYI reached a number of strategic agreements this year with prominent industry players including Douyin and Poly Culture. The partnerships demonstrate the company’s efforts in delivering added user value.
The company has entered into a definitive agreement with Douyin in July 2022, pursuant to which the company will license select content to Douyin for editing and distribution as short form videos in the formats agreed by the two companies. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, is one of the most used apps in China, with more than 700 million DAU. The cooperation with Douyin will bring iQIYI licensing revenue and drive traffic to iQIYI from Douyin.
The corporation between iQIYI and Poly Culture focuses on various areas, including the investment and production of films and television contents, live theatre production, arts and children's education, membership sharing and ticketing, location-based entertainment, cultural real estate, and joint development of virtual idols and other Intellectual Property (IP) derivatives. Poly Culture has a strong presence in theatres, film production, auction, art education and art museums in China, the company currently directly runs 68 cinemas and runs 248 franchised cinemas as well as over 70 theatres.
iQIYI drives progress of business model innovations in entertainment industry
In 2022, iQIYI took concrete steps in building towards a fairer and more efficient creative environment for the content producers. In April and September, the company upgraded its revenue sharing model for micro-short web series distribution twice, which helped initiate a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) model in China's film and television industry that helps align the interest and risk between the producers and video platforms, encouraging the two parties to work more closely together to create quality content, boost revenue, and help build a fairer media ecosystem.
iQIYI’s highest-grossing online film in 2022 achieved nearly RMB 40 million in box-office income, and there were more than 12.2 million ticketed purchases through the Premium Video on Demand (PVOD) mode.
In the past year, producer earnings under iQIYI’s revenue sharing model grew by 65% from 2021. Notably, Shining for One Thing (一閃一閃亮星星), a series that streams exclusively on iQIYI via the revenue sharing model, topped RMB 100 million in the revenue it generated. This demonstrated the success of iQIYI’s revenue sharing model in helping more producers of premium works to reap the commercial returns they deserve.
iQIYI unveils new logo, showing the company’s deepening commitment to technology and innovation
iQIYI unveiled a new logo as the company celebrates its 12th anniversary, reaffirming its commitment to unleashing innovation and providing quality content and better user experience.
New logo of iQIYI
Adopting a visually more streamlined font, the new logo also represents the company’s focused dedication to marrying human ingenuity with technology.
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