Live streaming may be booming in China in a post-pandemic world but only a few make it to the big leagues
- The pandemic has seen live streaming become a major new marketing channel for many brands in China after lockdowns
- However, while many live streamers enter the market in China with dreams of hitting it rich, only a few make it to the big leagues
Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, He Zhiqing supplemented his income as a factory owner in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai with a lucrative side business – live streaming daily life with his wife and their triplet daughters.
Within three years of starting, He and his wife Lin had more than four million online followers who tuned in regularly to watch the family on social media platform Douyin, the Chinese version of ByteDance-owned Tiktok. A well-known diaper brand even offered He 8,000 yuan (US$1,200) to make a 45-second promotion video for their products.
In a good month, the couple could earn as much as 200,000 yuan from advertising and live streaming – not an insignificant sum when some 40 per cent of China’s population survive on a monthly income of 1,000 yuan.
But since January, after the pandemic forced shops to close and pushed more sales online, the family has faced increased competition from other live streamers and the money is not as good as before.
“It’s been tough after the pandemic compared with last year,” said He. “Many movie stars are also live streaming … in the past with fewer people it was easy to be seen, but now there are so many people in this field.”