Recently, there were media reports that Chen Shaojie, Chairman and CEO of the Douyu Board of Directors, had recently lost contact, and there were also reports that he had been out of contact for 3 weeks. On the afternoon of November 6th, a reporter from Daily Economic News arrived at Douyu's Wuhan office, which is located at the New Development International Center in Optics Valley.
In Building B of the New Development International Center, an employee told reporters that the R&D department is mainly working here. The employee stated that he has rarely seen Chen Shaojie since coming to the company for several years, after all, he is only a low-level employee and usually does not see senior management. Another employee told reporters that everyone is currently working normally and their salaries are being paid normally.
One of the aforementioned Douyu employees told reporters that the company's brand promotion and other departments mainly work in Building A of the New Development International Center, including the front desk in Building A. Subsequently, the reporter arrived at the 23rd floor of Building A of the New Development International Center. At the Douyu front desk, the Daily Economic News reporter met an employee and after revealing his identity as a journalist, the reporter expressed his desire to verify whether Chen Shaojie had lost contact.
After waiting for about half an hour, a woman who introduced herself as a company public relations personnel received the reporter. Regarding the statement that "Douyu insiders have confirmed the news of Chen Shaojie's loss of contact" from the outside world, the aforementioned person stated that there is no such thing at all. "We have not received any demand for interviews
When the reporter suggested that Chen Shaojie could appear to dispel external doubts. The above public relations personnel stated that Chen Shaojie should have an external response, but the specific arrangements will still depend on the opinions of the company's superiors. In the middle of this month, the company will release its third quarter report. Generally speaking, Chen Shaojie will attend and everyone can follow.
However, the above-mentioned public relations personnel also stated that today's communication with the reporter was private and there is currently no external statement, and internal verification is underway.
As the CEO of a listed company, Chen Shaojie has not made many public appearances in recent years. The last time he appeared in public view was on August 14th this year when he attended a conference call for second quarter financial analysts.
During a conference call, Chen Shaojie commented on his performance and stated that the company continues to be committed to its core strategy - building a vibrant, game centric content ecosystem; Stable business development will enhance Douyu's competitive advantage and leading position in the domestic game content industry.
In terms of the market, as of the close on November 4th, the US stock of Douyu (DOYU) closed at $0.936, up 0.11%, with a total market value of $299 million.
Douyu, headquartered in Wuhan, is a gaming centric streaming live streaming platform. Users can enjoy interactive games and entertainment real-time streaming through platforms on PCs and mobile applications.
According to public information, he was born in 1984 and is from Jinan. Not long after he entered university, he dropped out of school and started his own business. He developed the "Master" game platform and sold it to Shanda, earning his first bucket of money.
In 2010, he bought the A station of "the originator of the anime website" in China, and incubated the "Health Release" channel. Four years later, he separated the "Live Broadcasting" channel from Station A and renamed it "Douyu TV".
In July 2019, Douyu was listed on NASDAQ with a market value of nearly $4 billion on that day. Chen Shaojie's personal wealth also skyrocketed. In October of that year, Chen Shaojie ranked 1507th on the 2019 Hurun Rich List with a fortune of 2.5 billion yuan.
On October 12, 2020, Huya Douyu officially signed a merger agreement, and Chen Shaojie will become the co CEO of the merged company. Chen Shaojie will also become the tenth member of Huya's board of directors.
According to Tianyancha APP, Chen Shaojie holds 50.2271% of the shares in Wuhan Douyu Network Technology Co., Ltd., making him the largest shareholder. Wuhan Douyu Network Technology Co., Ltd. is the operating entity of Douyu.
According to Douyu's 2022 annual report, Douyu achieved a revenue of 7.108 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 22.44%. The investment in marketing and brand expenses has also significantly decreased, with sales and marketing expenses in the fourth quarter of 2022 decreasing by 45.9% to 123.9 million yuan compared to 229.2 million yuan in the same period in 2021; The quarterly R&D expenses also decreased by 39.2% year-on-year to 80.6 million yuan.
Since the beginning of this year, Douyu has received attention from regulatory authorities due to issues with platform content.
In the first quarter of 2023, in response to the failure of online platforms such as Baidu, Sina Weibo, Douyu, and Douban to fulfill their main responsibilities and fail to fulfill their management obligations for the information posted by their users, which resulted in harmful information such as obscene and pornographic content, feudal superstition, prostitution, gambling diversion, and high interest loans being uploaded and broadcasted on the internet, the National Cyberspace Administration guided the local Cyberspace Administration to interview the responsible persons of the relevant websites in accordance with the law and ordered them to rectify within a specified period of time, Dispose of relevant accounts, strictly deal with responsible persons, and impose administrative penalties of fines separately.
On May 8, 2023, in response to serious ecological issues such as pornography and vulgarity on the Douyu platform, the National Internet Information Office guided the Hubei Provincial Internet Information Office to dispatch a working group to stationed on the Douyu platform for a month long centralized rectification supervision.
Regarding this, Chen Shaojie once stated that, During the supervision period, Douyu Company operated normally. After the supervision, we improved the platform's relevant rules and procedures, such as continuing to strengthen content supervision, review, and approval procedures. Overall, regulatory authorities are continuously strengthening and improving the supervision of the live streaming industry, and our goal is the long-term development of the platform. We will actively cooperate with regulatory work, fulfill the platform's main responsibility, and ensure the safety of content and users Operations