In less than a week, the Tokyo Olympic Games will officially open, and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which inspired countless China people, has passed 13 years. Sohu, who had just turned 7 at that time, won the sponsorship of Internet content for the Beijing Olympic Games for US$ 30 million. The slogan "Watch the Olympics and go to Sohu" made Sohu a household name in China.

Sohu, as one of the oldest Internet companies in China, can be said to be leading all the way in the PC Internet era. However, the Internet industry is changing all the time. In a blink of an eye, the era of mobile Internet has arrived. Sohu, which gained the first wave of benefits from the Internet, failed to keep pace with the times and missed many new outlets such as instant messaging, mobile payment, e-commerce and short video, thus falling out of the first echelon of Internet companies.

Sina, Netease and Tencent, once the four major portals, have found a new direction in the era of mobile Internet, while Sohu is still sticking to the glory of the portal in the PC era.

Last September, Tencent signed a privatization agreement with sogou to acquire sogou for $3.5 billion. After the transaction is completed, sogou will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent. As soon as the news came out, it immediately exploded the circle of friends. Sohu, which has been silent for many years, once again appeared in front of the public in this way, which made many people lament that "Sohu, once the first Internet stock, has now reached the age of heroes."

Recently, official website of the State Administration of Market Supervision showed that Tencent Holdings Limited was unconditionally approved to acquire the equity of sogou Company. At this point, Tencent's acquisition of sogou has been settled, and Sohu and sogou will formally break up and say goodbye.

Why does "Fox" sell "Dog"?

Sohu sold its single-handedly brought up "sogou", although helpless, but also willing. On the one hand, as early as when the mobile Internet just started to storm, Sohu tried to transform many times, but most of them ended in failure. Later, the wind of the times rained down, but Sohu escaped one by one. Now, the company's main business markets, such as news information, long videos, games, etc., have been gradually eroded by newly emerging Internet players, and Sohu has reached the point where it has to "sell dogs" to survive?

At the 20 16 world internet conference, Zhang Chaoyang, the head of Sohu, once said: "When the Internet in China moves towards the second half, Sohu will return to the center of the Internet stage." However, from 20 17 to 20 19, Sohu's net losses were $556 million, 1.3 1 100 million and 1.28 million respectively. At the online communication meeting of Sohu 20 19 financial report media, Zhang Chaoyang lost his pride in the past years in the face of Sohu's successive losses, and said in a low-key way: "I hope that the company can survive first in 2020, and can feed everyone and let everyone pay."

Indeed, the market value of Sohu today is less than $654.38+0 billion, while the market value of Netease is nearly 100 times that of Sohu in the same period. Someone joked that without sogou, Sohu's most valuable property would be the building it bought in Wudaokou.

On the other hand, although sogou is comparable to Baidu in search and input method, sogou's revenue accounts for more than 90% of search and related advertising revenue. When search enters the era of mobile Internet, the advertising industry has made new development, and the advertising form has also undergone great changes. Compared with traditional display and search advertisements, advertisers are more inclined to recommend and buy more transformational effect advertisements.

In addition, after entering the era of mobile Internet, all major integrated platforms basically have their own search channels, and the search bonus is gradually diverted, so it is difficult for sogou to make a big breakthrough in the single search field. In the past two years, sogou has been in a bottleneck period. In the past four consecutive quarters, sogou's income has been declining year-on-year. In the first quarter of 20021,sogou's revenue was $65,438+$372 million, down 47% year-on-year.

Looking at Sohu now, the main media business continues to lose money, leaving only the game business Changyou as the pillar to support Sohu. Sohu can only continue its life by reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and stopping losses and returning to blood.

As early as the financial communication meeting in the first quarter of 2020, Zhang Chaoyang particularly emphasized that after deducting sogou's loss, Sohu's net loss was 8 million US dollars, down 84.5438+0% year-on-year. For Sohu, sogou has become a huge burden for Sohu's revenue to turn positive. Only by selling unprofitable sogou will Sohu have a chance to make a comeback.

In fact, Sohu's current internal and external troubles are related to the times and Zhang Chaoyang.

In the era of PC Internet, Sohu grasped the pulse of the times and launched the first large-scale classified search engine and news channel in China, which opened the door to the Internet world for China netizens. "Map goes out, Sohu looks online" has become a classic slogan of the times.

Sohu's success has made Sohu full of arrogance from top to bottom. Zhang Chaoyang, the head of Sohu, relaxed his vigilance and chose to join the entertainment circle.

At this time, the mobile Internet storm has just begun. At the critical moment of Sohu's transformation, Zhang Chaoyang, the helmsman, had to "close the door" because of depression. Subsequently, Sohu was defeated in Weibo War, News Client War and Long Video Copyright War. To make matters worse, a large number of senior executives of Sohu also left their jobs in those years, such as Gu Yongqiang, Gong Yu and Li Shanyou. After leaving his post, he founded Youku, Iqiyi and Ku 6 respectively.

A series of blows made Sohu unable to keep up with the pace of the mobile Internet era and went downhill. 20 13, Zhang Chaoyang returned to the customs, but the rivers and lakes of the internet have changed. BAT has become the center of the Internet industry, and Sohu, the first person who once opened the Internet door in China, has reached the edge of the industry.

Step by step slowly, it is difficult to make a comeback by selling dogs?

With the sale of sogou, Sohu will get nearly $654.38+0.2 billion in cash. In addition, by the end of the first quarter of this year, the cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments held by Sohu Group were * * * 335 million US dollars, which means that Sohu has at least more than 654.38+05 billion US dollars in cash flow on its books. How does the money from "selling dogs" support Sohu's return to the Internet center?

According to McKinsey's three-level theory, the characteristics of all large companies that maintain growth are to maintain the balanced development of three-level businesses: the first level is to expand and guard core businesses, the second level is to establish emerging businesses, and the third level is to create feasible candidate businesses.

Sohu started as a portal, so its core business has always been media information. But the data shows that in the first quarter of this year, games accounted for 79.47% of Sohu's main composition, and advertisements accounted for 13.84. In other words, Sohu's core business news information has reached the ceiling of dividends, and it is difficult to bring more traffic and advertising revenue. On the contrary, the game business has become the pillar of Sohu.

In fact, Changyou completed privatization last year, and after returning to Sohu, it helped Sohu achieve profitability in 2020. According to the financial report data, in 2020, Sohu's online game revenue was 537 million US dollars, up 22% year-on-year, accounting for 765,438+0% of the total annual revenue.

Sohu's game department Changyou can only get an antique IP game, "Tianlong Babu", which has a history of 14 years, and its gameplay and image quality have long fallen behind the trend of the times. You don't want to launch more explosive new games such as League of Legends, Survival of the Jedi, the glory of the king, etc. Then Sohu's trump card may eventually be abandoned by the times.

Of course, Sohu is not without new business. In 2020, Sohu began to focus on live broadcast and social interaction.

Zhang Chaoyang has his own ideas about live broadcast. He believes that the current live content forms are always divided into three categories: one is live show, the other is live e-commerce with goods, and the third is the live broadcast form "value live broadcast" pioneered by Sohu video, that is, inviting knowledgeable people to broadcast live, transmitting knowledge and value, and demonstrating the power of the media.

On June 5438+February 19, 2020, Zhang Chaoyang put forward a brand-new strategy of 202 1 at the Sohu World Congress: take Sohu video as the live broadcast center and get through the "five golden flowers" (namely Sohu. Com, mobile phone Sohu, Sohu news client, Sohu video and Fox Friends APP) form the product matrix linkage of head live broadcast. Simply put, Sohu wants to help Sohu realize the overall promotion of media value by combining popular live broadcast, video and social activities with the knowledge content that Sohu is good at, so as to build its own new business ecology.

In June last year, Zhang Chaoyang opened his first live broadcast program "Charles's Good Things Sharing" on Sohu Video, and then Sohu successively launched programs such as "Sister's Good Things Sharing" and "Band's Good Things Sharing". Sohu realizes the purpose of live broadcast with goods through variety shows, attracting more users and traffic, thus stimulating the growth of Sohu's advertising business.

Although Sohu's value live broadcast and live variety show look promising, the problem is that Sohu still lacks core competitiveness. No matter what kind of live broadcast form, as long as there are traffic and users, all major platforms can follow up quickly. Compared with the head live broadcast platform, it is difficult for Sohu to find more advantages in terms of technology, scale and capital investment.

In addition to the live broadcast, Sohu officially launched the "Friends" social APP on June 20 19. Zhang Chaoyang said that Tiger Tour is a product between WeChat and Momo, and it finds an open space between acquaintances and strangers. As soon as Fox Friends went online, Zhang Chaoyang posted many trends on Fox Friends, and attracted many stars as its platform. At the same time, he also launched the Fox National Friends School Flower School Grass Competition to create a hot topic and promote the "Fox Friends" APP.

However, Zhang Chaoyang's hard shouting did not make Friends spread smoothly. According to Maggie's data, Tiger Tour has been online for more than 2 years, and has been hovering in the top of social App rankings for a long time 100. Today's fox friends are just tinkering, which can't bring much traffic and income to Sohu at all, nor can it help Sohu shake the dominance of WeChat in the social field.

Written at the end: Now the competition in the Internet industry is becoming more and more fierce. Although Sohu lost sogou, it won a little possibility for itself. Sohu, which just missed the opportunity of the times, still has a long way to go to return to the center of the Internet stage.