iQIYI Opens Technology and Entertainment Conference to an Innovative Start

BEIJING, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- China's leading internet and mobile video service provider iQIYI unveils a grand vision to transform itself into "a great entertainment company powered by technology innovation" at a major industry conference the company hosts in Beijing from June 8 to 9.

The 2017 iQIYI Technology and Entertainment World Conference has drawn around 10,000 industry leaders, professionals and journalists around the world.

iQIYI's founder and CEO Dr. Gong Yu, Baidu Group President and COO Lu Qi and renowned film director Peter Chan each give a keynote speech at the opening of the two-day event.

In his speech, Gong told the conference that iQIYI has come a long way from a simple streaming service provider to an entertainment platform empowered by its strength in content distribution and ability to monetize contents after years of exploration and development.

"iQIYI has committed itself to business and technology innovation to help develop the online video industry along the way," he said. "We'll continue to share with our partners our core strength and work with them to build an even more splendid and richer world of entertainment."

To that end, iQIYI is seeking to become an even more open platform to make the best of capacity in data analytics, artificial intelligence technology and monetization to help partners maximize their revenues.

For content suppliers, small or large, once they choose to entrust iQIYI with their productions, they are not only having access to iQIYI's powerful database offering insight into the demographics of viewers and their viewing habits, but also the AI-empowered support and marketing tools to reach out to viewers and maximize their revenue.

Currently, iQIYI has an average 310 million active users on its platform every day. iQIYI App ranks only second after WeChat as the most popular mobile apps in China in terms of time spent by users, according to a report released in May by online market consulting firm iResearch.

More than 510 million devices either laptops or mobile phones are used by viewers to gain access to iQIYI each month and they spent a combined six billion hours on shows streamed via iQIYI, statistics from iResearch show.

To make the best use of our heightened strength, iQIYI has developed a "one-fish-cooked-multiple-way" business model to maximize profits for content producers via advertising, paid membership, franchising, copyright sales, gaming and e-commerce.

iQIYI is also exploring the potential of some of promising changes in advertising, namely in-feed ads, and expansion of paid membership to more premium contents.

In-feed ads, which refer to video ads streamed in the mix of short online video productions, allows advertisers to make the most of traffics on iQIYI and is expected become another major source of revenue for the company.

As the online service industry increasingly relies on paid subscriptions, premium contents are believed to be the key for winning in the market.

iQIYI, which has tasted the success in paid subscriptions for online films, dramas and variety shows, is now moving more contents behind the paywall.

That means any contents, animations, children's shows or documentaries could all be monetized as long as they are good enough and popular with viewers, and producers can share revenues from advertising and membership sales.

Such business models will certainly drive up demand for high-quality content productions, particularly cash and talent-intensive super online dramas.

iQIYI has responded that demand with the "Dolphin Plan" to be unveiled at the 2017 China Online Drama Summit on June 9 to bolster super drama production under a new business model combining competitive tender, revenue-share and minimum guarantee agreements.

At the Online Drama Summit, iQIYI is also to launch two other initiatives -"Tiger Cub Plan" and "White Swan Plan" –to nurture up-coming drama producers, directors and screenwriters as well as young actors in its efforts to tackle a talent shortfall.

The summit is among a dozen high-level forums to be staged during 2017 iQIYI Technology and Entertainment World Conference to focus on almost every aspect of the fledgling online entertainment industry.

iQIYI believes the conference will help maintain the momentum for cooperation with its partners for an open platform to give rise to a new era of entertainment in China.

SOURCE iQIYI