On April 23rd, Red Star Capital Bureau reported that Chen Shaojie, founder and CEO of Douyu (DOYU. US), has been released on bail pending trial. According to the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, legal professionals have estimated that Chen Shaojie's specific sentence may be between 5-7 years based on the circumstances of his case.
Chen Shaojie was arrested by the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project Public Security Bureau in November 2023 on suspicion of opening a casino. After the incident, Douyu established a temporary management committee and publicly stated during the third quarter financial report conference call that "Douyu Company is currently operating normally and the investigation has not had a significant impact on the company's operations.". Afterwards, Douyu did not disclose any information about Chen Shaojie.
According to public information, Chen Shaojie was born in Jinan in 1984 and dropped out of school during his freshman year due to his obsession with games. At the age of 26, he bought the then original website of anime, "Station A", and then separated the "Life Release" channel from Station A, and renamed it "Douyu TV".
Douyu mainly engages in game live streaming business and was once one of the top live streaming platforms in China. It went public on NASDAQ in July 2019 with a market value of about 30 billion yuan, and Chen Shaojie's personal wealth skyrocketed accordingly. In October of that year, Chen Shaojie ranked 1507th on the 2019 Hurun Rich List with a net worth of 2.5 billion yuan. According to the Daily Economic News, Chen Shaojie's last public appearance was in August 2023 when he attended the company's Q2 financial report analyst conference call.
After Chen Shaojie's arrest, a large number of Douyu's top anchors suspended their live broadcasts. At that time, there were rumors in the industry that they were related to Chen Shaojie, mainly due to his involvement in gambling and money laundering. According to the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, in March of this year, the well-known Douyu anchor "Xiaotuan Tuan" was confirmed to have been arrested. According to insiders, "Xiaotuan Tuan" is also suspected of large-scale gambling and is related to the Chen Shaojie case.
In terms of performance, currently, Douyu's paid users continue to decline, with a monthly active user (MAU) of 51.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, a decrease of 5.7 million compared to the same period last year; The average paid users in the fourth quarter were 3.7 million, a year-on-year decrease of 1.9 million.
In 2023, Douyu turned losses into profits for the first time in nearly three years, but its revenue continued to decline. The revenue scale from 2020 to 2023 was 9.6 billion yuan, 9.1 billion yuan, 7.1 billion yuan, and 5.53 billion yuan, respectively; In terms of net profit, Douyu suffered losses for two consecutive years in 2021 and 2022, and finally turned losses into profits in 2023, with a net profit of 154 million yuan.
As of the close on April 22, Douyu's stock price was $8.29 per share, with a total market value of $265 million. At the beginning of 2021, the market value of Douyu exceeded 3 billion US dollars and has now evaporated by over 90%.