In Saudi Arabia, at two o'clock in the morning, the street bubble tea shop is overcrowded, and through the crowd, Pippi can see the owners and employees of the street shops, swiping her live broadcast room on TikTok after work, "Middle Easterners are really rich and love to join in the fun." ”
In the Middle East, a live broadcast PK of local tyrants was carried out in millions of dollars.
Lao Huang is the head of the business of MICO (Mike World), the head social app in the Middle East, in the Middle East, and he told the alphabet list that in an event where a Middle Eastern country is used as a team to do PK, whoever can reward more will raise the flag of which country in the live broadcast room. 3 hours of live broadcast, "If you play well, a single user can tip hundreds of thousands of dollars." ”
According to the public data of the financial report, Mike World, which relies on the social product MICO to go overseas in the Middle East, will reach 1.452 billion yuan in the Middle East and North Africa region in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 30%. The net profit of the business was 761 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 165%. From March to June 2024, the share price of Pure City rose by more than 100%, reaching a high of HK$4.26 per share. This company, which used to be the "Middle East version of Momo", is backed by Middle Eastern tyrants, and its life is quite nourishing.
However, for the old yellows, going to the Middle East to do social going to sea has long been no longer able to "make a lot of money quietly".
According to the statistics of the alphabet list, in the past year, more than 10 new social apps have been listed on the best-selling list of Google play and APP in Saudi Arabia, and more than half of them have Chinese company backgrounds. More and more social and pan-entertainment companies are beginning to look to the Middle East.
In addition to the continuous influx of new players, the entry of giant TikTok has also brought new variables.
"In the early days, in the TikTok life section, the anchor could get 50% of the share, MCN took 39%, and TikTok only left 11%", in the view of Shi Songrui, co-founder of TikTok's head MCN Saiya Blueprint in the Middle East, TikTok is serious when it enters the Middle East. According to Diandian data, in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, TikTok MAU is about 48 million, which is more than 30 times more than other top live streaming apps.
After the giants entered the market, "many anchors of MICO and Yale (the leading social app in the Middle East) were attracted to TikTok to start live broadcasts," Pippi said.
The "Howe" of the Middle East has exceeded the imagination of the new gold diggers. In 2022, Shi Songrui, who "thought it would be good to earn $5 million a month", achieved his goal in the second month of settling in, and directly achieved $30 million in the third month. “
At 3 o'clock in the morning, in the live broadcast room operated by Pippi, the gift effects of various luxury cars still do not stop, and TikTok's live broadcast list is counted as a weekly list in some parts of Southeast Asia, "Only in the Middle East, the live broadcast list is calculated by the hour." Pippi told Alphabet that she didn't know when tonight's live broadcast would end.
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How tyrant are Middle Easterners?
If Lao Huang's imagination of Middle Eastern users was still in the live broadcast room, the uninterrupted gift special effects, when he was invited to a MICO user's house and saw the garage under a whole row of luxury cars, the word "local tyrant" became concrete.
According to data.ai's 2022 report, consumers in the MENA region spent $3.3 billion on app stores in 2021 alone. "There is a local tyrant anchor who saw two viewers arguing in the live broadcast room, just to clean his ears, he gave a gift worth $100 to everyone in the live broadcast room." Lao Huang told the alphabet list.
In the Gulf countries, mainly Saudi Arabia, both online and offline social networking is influenced by religious culture. The high fertility rate has made more than half of the population in the Middle East under the age of 25, but in 2018, the first cinema appeared in Saudi Arabia, and the lack of offline entertainment has given rise to the enthusiasm of Middle Easterners for online socialization.
According to the Global Web Index, the Middle East and North Africa region alone accounts for five of the top 10 countries in the world for social media usage. Among them, the Middle East has an average of 8.4 social media accounts. And just a year after TikTok operated the live broadcast room, Pippi was also shocked many times by the Middle Easterners who "got off work at two o'clock in the morning and were still waiting for the live broadcast", "They seem to always have a chat room open." ”
The founder of a social app in the Middle East said frankly that although the APP "doesn't live more than 10,000 a day, it can support the whole team by relying on 7-9 local tyrants." What's more, "In the past two years, I went to the Middle East for a small social APP, and the whole APP was supported by 2-3 super tyrants." ”
Photo/Local tyrants participate in MICO GALA
Source/Courtesy of MICO
Under the strong demand, bypassing social giants such as Facebook and facing the rich and idle Middle Eastern tycoons, it is undoubtedly the common goal of the first batch of Middle Eastern people to go to sea such as Mike World and Yale.
But going to the Middle East to do social going to sea and just copying Momo is obviously not enough.
Under the influence of religion and culture, if you want to replicate Momo's live show, Lao Huang needs to start by cultivating anchors. In the Middle East, where the development of the Internet industry is lagging behind and there is a lack of entertainment activities, not only does no one know what live broadcast is, but there is no anchor position, Lao Huang simply mobilized internal employees, "If you do a good job, you will set up a trade union, and if you don't do a good job, you will come back to work", just like that, Lao Huang struggled to pull up the anchor team.
MICO, which has established the earliest anchor team in the Middle East, has also relied on the gameplay of "social + live broadcast" to not only "make money on the first day of launch", but also drive the contrarian growth of performance in the past three years, "The team once completed the one-year performance growth target in one month." Lao Huang said.
And even with the anchor, "during the live broadcast, many women wear veils and only show their eyes, and some even don't show their faces on a black screen." Different from Momo and Tantan, who have already moved towards the era of live shows in China, Middle Eastern anchors are more conservative, but at the same time, Lao Huang found that even if many anchors just "do housework at home and chat with friends while opening a voice room, they can still get tips", and the mediocre language chat room on Momo has become a new scene with considerable profits in the Middle East.
Miko World simply launched a dedicated voice social product in addition to MICO. As the leading social app in the Middle East, Yalla skips the live broadcast scene and allows users to choose the voice chat room they are interested in through the APP, just like in a WeChat group chat, sending text or voice to open the microphone. In just 4 years, Yale has gone from a start-up to a listing on the U.S. stock market, with an annual net profit of more than 20 million US dollars, and according to the 2024Q1 financial report data, the average number of monthly active users in the first quarter of Yale was 37.791 million, and the number of paid users was 12.806 million.
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However, the old yellows who are local tyrants in their hands still can't lie down and count the money.
Miko World, which will achieve a 165% increase in profits in 2024, faces a nearly 10-fold increase in traffic costs in Saudi Arabia alone.
Lao Huang told the alphabet list that there are more players who go to the Middle East to socialize and go to sea, and while they are more diversified, competition will inevitably intensify. From the start-up period when there were no anchors, to now entering the second half of the user competition, the old players represented by Mike World are first facing the competition for traffic and users.
Although there are a large number of young users in the Middle East, and there is no shortage of local tycoons who are willing to "spend a lot of money", the competition for the six Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, which has a higher ability to pay, has never stopped.
In the face of the penetration of giants such as TikTok, Lao Huang said frankly, "It was indeed stressful at the beginning. ”
also covers the live broadcast scene, and the high-profile TikTok first overwhelmed Yale and Mico World with a monthly activity advantage of 48 million. "TikTok's entry into the Middle East did attract some MICO anchors at the beginning," Lao Huang told Alphabet List.
As a latecomer, Shi Songrui, the founder of Saiya Blueprint, also "signed anchors" in the early days. As an MCN who went to the Middle East with TikTok, in Shi Songrui's view, Yale and Mike World are in front, and the era of "small and big" social networking in the Middle East has long passed, and he invested more than 4 million yuan in early 2022, including the purchase of equipment. From a monthly turnover of 30 million to today's 100 million-level turnover, TikTok has also established a solid anchor team.
In addition to the giants, the new entrants are also ambitious, aiming at the stranger social track in the Middle East.
In the "social + live broadcast" scenario that Miko World is good at, in June 2023, JACO launched by Chinese manufacturers, and within 3 months of its launch, it ranked first in the App download list in 5 countries: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Libya, with a revenue of more than 1.1 million US dollars. JACO, who is "out of position" at the speed of light, not only advertises on TikTok, but also digs up a lot of TikTok KOLs to settle in, including many anchors from Mike World and Yale.
In just one year since 2023, there have been many new faces in the social apps of Chinese manufacturers going overseas to the Middle East. Among them, Hiya Chat, which focuses on "dance + socialization", has been downloaded more than 1 million times, and WePlay, which focuses on "game + socialization", has also become popular in the Middle East with the gameplay of "Bomb Cat".
In the face of new and more diversified new products, veteran players such as Mike World, in addition to MICO, which focuses on live broadcasting, have also launched YoHo for voice socialization, SUGO for companion socialization, and TopTop for game socialization.
However, Lao Huang told Alphabet that TikTok has limited pressure on veteran players, and in fact, he welcomes TikTok into the Middle East.
As an international tool, TikTok's entry into the Middle East can quickly promote the education of the Middle East live broadcast market. The entry of giants has also made the Mike world begin to think about a new way out of their own differentiation.
"I jumped to the head anchor of TikTok, and now I am starting to return to MICO from TikTok one after another." Lao Huang said that after operating in the Middle East social track for many years, MICO's "moat" is not only in the anchor team, but also in the series of personal services provided for the head anchors, including content customization in the live broadcast room. For anchors who can be the head in MICO, although the TikTok platform is large and has a lot of traffic, without the one-to-one support of the platform, the anchors are facing more fierce competition.
From the blue ocean to the red sea, Shi Songrui bluntly said that although going to sea must be the main theme in the next three years. However, "it's easy to go out, it's hard to go in," going to the Middle East to do stranger social going to sea is not a simple copy of Momo's "time machine game", under the involution of a large number of Chinese manufacturers going to sea, going to the Middle East to socialize and go to sea is no longer a battlefield for small players.
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But in a new market, there are always unexpected new risks.
"I finally trained an anchor who signed it and supported it until the monthly turnover was 3 million, and the anchor suddenly returned to China without saying hello." Shi Songrui told the alphabet list that the contract that can almost "sign an anchor" in China has expired overseas. Once the anchor breaches the contract, even if MCN wants to defend its rights, it will not only face a transnational lawsuit that takes more than half a year, but also expensive lawyer fees. Overseas, MCNs have almost lost strong control over anchors.
Even with the backing of TikTok, the new Shi Songrui found that anchoring is still a new profession in the Middle East, and he has to start by training anchors himself. can't bind the anchor through a contract, and Shi Songrui can only increase the cost of betrayal of the anchor.
"Renting a villa for the anchor and riding a sports car are all basic operations." In Dubai, Egypt and other places, Shi Songrui has local offices, and for high-quality anchors, MCN will provide personal services such as scene construction in the live broadcast room, live broadcast training, etc. At the same time, high-quality anchors can also build their own teams, and in the Middle East, where the family atmosphere is strong, through the old and the new, the relationship network is bound layer by layer.
From 30 million to 300 million in a single month, Shi Songrui began to find the trick, that is, "enough localization". In the two years that Shi Songrui has been overseas, the TikToklife section has gone from almost no live content, no lighting, and no sound card in the Middle East, to now there is the concept of live broadcast scene construction.
Picture/Tipping special effects in the TikTok live broadcast room
Source/Courtesy of Saiya Blueprint
According to Diandian data, in 2022, two of TikTok's top 5 markets in terms of revenue (excluding advertising and e-commerce) are Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), and the live broadcast revenue of these two countries can reach 100 million US dollars in a single month.
For Lao Huang, who went to Dubai in 2007 and has lived in the Middle East for more than ten years, he now spends at least 4-5 hours a day communicating directly with customers. Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube are famous, and smaller startups need to make the user experience more solid.
Compared with TikTok, it is large and complete, meeting the customized needs of Middle Eastern tycoons has become a new "moat" that Miko World has found.
In the Middle East, where the fertility rate is extremely high, Middle Easterners often have huge offline families, and Middle Easterners care about face and a sense of power, even if the Douyin carnival of 3,000 yuan in China is directly 7 times higher in the Middle East, it cannot meet the needs of Middle Eastern tyrants.
In response to this situation, MICO has launched a family function, designing exclusive titles such as barons, earls, and marquis to flaunt the user's worth, and will also highlight the sense of strength and luxury in the design of gifts.
Different from domestic rockets and flowers, widely recognized by Middle Eastern tyrants, it is a gift of lions, eagles, luxury cars and other gifts with Middle Eastern characteristics, "Sometimes some users will ask the platform to design an effect according to his specific needs, such a demand, TikTok is impossible to meet", Lao Huang told the alphabet list, such targeted demand customization, is MICO's strength.
It is not easy for Miko World to make a super APP like TikTok in the Middle East, it is better to cut the needs of users from the source, find a vertical level to deepen the cultivation, so that users can "go to MICO for live broadcast, YoHo for voice, and TopTop for games".
There is never a shortage of cool articles about social going to sea in the Middle East.
In this live broadcast room that lasts from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., in the live broadcast room at three or four o'clock in the morning, the screen is still beating non-stop with the gift effects of luxury cars.
Today, Lao Huang is based in Egypt, and in the past three years, the local infrastructure has not been developed, and the nearest barber shop is a 30-minute drive, and at the busiest time, when his hair grows, colleagues will give each other haircuts.
Here, the rich and the barren are intertwined, and the gold diggers are constantly involuted, which is the most familiar norm for players.