Mango Excellent Media's 'Riding the Winds and Breaking the Waves' lacked a bit of market wave feedback.

On the evening of April 21, Mango Excellent Media released its 2023 annual report and Q1 2024 report.

In 2023, Mango Excellent Media achieved operating revenue of 14.628 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.66%; net profit of 3.556 billion yuan, up 90.73% YoY; basic earnings per share of 1.90 yuan. The company plans to distribute a cash dividend of 1.8 yuan per 10 shares. In Q1 2024, net profit was 472 million yuan, down 13.85% YoY.

The report was released at Mango Excellent Media's brightest moment on video platforms—the co-broadcast drama "The Legend of Shen Li" had just concluded, while the exclusive variety show "Sisters Who Make Waves" was premiering.

Compared to its stellar content performance, the merely passable financial results delivered by Mango Excellent Media in the market were clearly insufficient to satisfy investors.At market close on April 22, Mango Excellent Media fell 5.69% to 22.2 yuan.

Contrary to market pessimism, multiple brokerages including Soochow Securities and Huaxin Securities maintained "buy" ratings, expressing optimism about Mango Excellent Media's future.

Analyzing the 2023 annual & Q1 2024 reports, Mouyu believes Mango Excellent Media still lacks the market's wave-like feedback to truly "make waves."

Mango Excellent Media: Building New Revenue on Content Highlands

One standout figure in the financial report was Mango Excellent Media's 90.73% YoY growth in net profit attributable to shareholders, reaching 3.556 billion yuan.

However,this growth primarily stemmed from non-recurring gains from tax adjustments. During the reporting period, a one-time tax policy adjustment contributed approximately 1.629 billion yuan.

Operating revenue showed minimal growth, with advertising revenue even declining 11.57% YoY. Notably, Mango Excellent Media's ad revenue had contracted more sharply in 2022, dropping 26.77%.

The advertising decline resulted from multiple factors, including lack of exclusive hit dramas and competition from short videos and mini-dramas.

This decline is somewhat irreversible, as the advertising battle fundamentally revolves around competing for audience attention. With emerging players like short videos entering the fray,Mango Excellent Media's ad revenue drop appears inevitable and shouldn't be interpreted as advertisers abandoning a single video platform.

Evaluating Mango Excellent Media should always focus on two aspects: itscontent strength and revenue innovation—the former being its capital, the latter its leverage.

Mango Stands on Resource Highlands

As the saying goes: You may doubt Mango TV's content, but never doubt its resources.

Building on Hunan TV's legacy, Mango TV—Mango Excellent Media's core pillar—has always stood on resource highlands for content production and advertising. This allowed Mango Excellent Media to achieve profitability early in the streaming wars.

As Mouyu analyzed in January's 2023 earnings preview, Mango Excellent Media's greatest advantage lies in:For long-form video and variety shows as content industries, compared to the uncertainties in production, Mango Excellent Media's resource aggregation creates tangible high ground distinguishing it from rivals.

This is precisely why multiple firms maintain "buy" ratings.

Two cases illustrate Mango Excellent Media's enduring advantages.

Content-wise, the recently premiered "Sisters Who Make Waves 2024" dominated Weibo's hot search list, with #Sisters2024Premiere ranking second and multiple related hashtags trending consecutively.

Regardless of production quality, the show's greatest strength is assembling 36 accomplished female celebrities to compete on one stage—even recruiting internationally renowned figures to maximize the "catfish effect."

Without exaggeration, "Sisters Who Make Waves" has maintainedan aesthetic of "resource accumulation" since Season 1.

Another case is advertising. In 2023, Mango Excellent Media acquired Golden Eagle 卡通， strengthening its moat in children's content. That same year, Mango TV's advertising conference achieved an unprecedented joint presentation across four platforms: Hunan 卫视， Golden Eagle 卡通， Xiaomang E-commerce, and itself.

Rather than resting on past resources, Mango TV's future innovations show polarizing trends in long-form video and variety shows.

In long-form production, Mango Excellent Media fell into a "resource trap," over-relying on existing paths, becoming the only major platform lacking hit dramas in recent years. Cases like "Love Is a Bonus Book" prove that star power alone can't satisfy today's audiences.

For variety shows, Mango TV demonstrates real innovation. On March 20, Xiaomang App announced China's first model toy variety show "Make Friends with Models," targeting niche interests.

Reportedly, Mango Excellent Media established an innovation bidding system among its dozens of studios to avoid internal competition. Under revenue pressure, micro-innovations in variety shows continue emerging.

Mango Excellent Media's fifty-plus production teams and numerous studios form the foundation for its market vitality.

Reviving long-form video may require institutional innovations to reactivate existing resources.

Membership + E-commerce: Mango Seeks New Growth

With advertising growth challenging, memberships and e-commerce became Mango Excellent Media's 2023 focus.

This report 首次 proposedrefining ARPPU (average revenue per paying user), stating Mango TV membership may enter a high-quality phase 同步提升 membership numbers and ARPPU.

This goal is foreshadowed in customized membership cards—like IP-specific "Escape Room Cards," genre-based "Music Variety Cards," or vertical "Movie Cards."

By 2023 year-end, Mango TV had 66.53 million members, with annual membership revenue up 10.23% to 4.315 billion yuan (Q4: +35.64% YoY), marking encouraging progress from 2022's single-digit growth.

However,compared to membership's "precision farming," e-commerce's "reclamation" appears more uncertain.

Mango's e-commerce approach—displaying contextually relevant products during shows—aimed for instant conversions but often disrupted viewing without boosting purchases.

Successful cases exist, like the 100-million-yuan baseball jacket from variety show "Detective Academy 6," which spawned in-house apparel brand "Number One."

Yetthis resembles fan economy monetization rather than establishing intrinsic e-commerce value, lagging far behind peers like Douyin E-commerce launched the same year.

Clearly, Mango Excellent Media's 2023 growth drivers—memberships and e-commerce—ultimately rely on content support. Current expansions into AI and mini-dramas await the market's next wave to determine whether Mango can truly "make waves."