39 year old Douyu CEO Chen Shaojie has been exposed as disconnected.
On November 6th, Pengpai News confirmed from multiple sources that Chen Shaojie, the founder and CEO of the live streaming platform Douyu (Nasdaq: DOYU), has lost contact. As of press release, the Douyu official has not responded to this matter.
Several insiders confirmed to reporters that Chen Shaojie had lost contact in October. Regarding the reason for the loss of contact, there are rumors in the industry that Chen Shaojie's loss of contact may be related to the "Changsha Rural Expendables" in the previous Douyu live broadcast room.
A Douyu insider told reporters that the company's operations are currently operating normally and have not been affected.
Previously, on October 13th, the "Social Products Legal Compliance Department" of the official account announced that recently, the head of a large live streaming platform was arrested by authorities in a certain area of Sichuan on suspicion of opening a casino, sparking multiple speculations.
On November 6, a surging journalist called the person in charge of the official account and the team of Kenting Law Firm. The other party said that the push article was not directly related to the loss of connection between Chen Shaojie, CEO of Douyu, and the article has been deleted.
According to public media reports, the "Changsha Rural Expendables" used various lottery rules for Douyu to engage in suspected gambling activities. Users can participate in a virtual currency lottery worth 1000 to tens of thousands of yuan by purchasing designated items within a certain period of time. The "Changsha Rural Expendables" then purchased virtual currency in equal amount through third-party channels such as Alipay or "backpackers" to cash in their bonuses.
The live broadcast room often starts gambling and lottery at 10 pm, and the "Changsha Rural Expendable Team" also refers to gambling as the "10 pm Economic Class", with the "start class at 10 pm" as the public secret code. Many teenagers are addicted to it, suffering heavy losses and unable to extricate themselves. Some users made crazy bets of over 300000 yuan in the live streaming room within half an hour.
According to statistics from third-party live streaming data platforms, the "Changsha Rural Expendable Team" achieved a revenue of 177 million yuan and a daily turnover of 13.1767 million yuan in 2020. Among them, the highest income was in March, with a monthly revenue of 74.87 million yuan and a daily revenue of approximately 2.41 million yuan.
However, the "Changsha Rural Death Squad" has been exposed by multiple media outlets for gambling since 2021, and it is currently unavailable for journalists to search on Douyu platforms. The Douyu official did not respond to the specific reasons for the rumor of Chen Shaojie losing contact.
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.
Chen Shaojie's last public appearance was in a conference call after Douyu's second quarter financial report on August 14th. At that time, he stated that he would continue to build a healthy and sustainable gaming community ecosystem for Douyu, attach importance to the operation of core users, implement the development strategy of "a diversified content ecosystem platform centered on games", and be committed to the production of high-quality content and innovation of product models.
According to the financial report, Douyu's net profit for the second quarter was 61.4 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 161%. However, its total revenue was 1.392 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 24.1%, and it has been on a downward trajectory for three consecutive years.
At the beginning of 2021, Douyu reached a maximum of $20.54 per share, but has now dropped by over 90%. As of the close on November 3, it was at $0.94, up 0.11%, with a total market value of $299 million.
Chen Shaojie's entrepreneurial experience is quite legendary. 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. At that time, according to the Douyu IPO prospectus, Chen Shaojie owned 14.3% of Douyu, Zhang Wenming held 3%, and Tencent's Nectarine Investment Limited held 40.1%, making him the largest shareholder of Douyu. In October of that year, Chen Shaojie ranked 1507th on the 2019 Hurun Rich List with a personal wealth of 2.5 billion yuan.
In 2020, Douyu and another game live streaming platform, Huya (NYSE: HUYA), had planned to merge. According to the centralized agreement, Tencent planned to acquire all equity of Douyu through Huya, and after the transaction, Tencent would acquire separate control of the merged entity. However, on July 12, 2021, Douyu announced on its official website that it would terminate its merger agreement with Huya.
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.
It is worth noting that in the first half of this year, Douyu was required to focus on rectification due to pornographic and vulgar issues. On May 8th, according to CCTV news, 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.
At that time, Douyu responded that it would actively cooperate with the inspection and guidance of the Hubei Provincial Internet Information Office working group, and conscientiously carry out content rectification and other work in accordance with regulatory requirements. At present, the Douyu platform is operating normally. Thank you to the public for their attention and supervision. Douyu will further optimize the platform's content review mechanism, fulfill its regulatory responsibilities, and create a healthier and more positive online live streaming environment.