【雅思课外精读】爱奇艺和腾讯的流媒体老大之争

　　【雅思课外精读】爱奇艺和腾讯的流媒体老大之争*注：本文摘自8月22日BBC

　　Entertainment

　　娱乐

　　A big-sum game

　　烧钱游戏

　　China’s streaming wars may end with a duopolistic peace

　　中国的流媒体战争可能会以双寡头垄断的和解告终

　　1. Launched in 2010, iQiyi has grown used to the foreign press calling it “the Netflix of China”. Not the worst nickname, given the video streaming pioneer’s success. But Gong Yu, iQiyi’s founder and boss, insists that his firm is more accurately described as “Netflix plus”. A bold claim for a lossmaking business worth one-fifteenth as much as America’s (cash-generating) entertainment powerhouse with a market value of $214bn. Still, Mr Gong has a point.

　　爱奇艺于2010年推出，已经习惯被外国媒体称为“中国版网飞”。鉴于这家视频流媒体先驱的成功，这并不是一个糟糕的称号。但爱奇艺的创始人兼老板龚宇坚称，更准确地说，爱奇艺是“网飞+”。爱奇艺现在正在亏损，其市值是美国市值2140元的娱乐巨头的十五分之一。尽管如此，龚宇的说法还是有道理的。

　　2. Like Netflix, iQiyi offers customers a deep catalogue of licensed and original content. Unlike Netflix, which relies almost entirely on subscription fees, iQiyi has multiple revenue streams. “Membership fees”, which start from 19.8 yuan ($2.87) a month, accounted for just over half of iQiyi’s 7.4bn yuan in revenues in the second quarter. The rest came mainly from an online store (which sells “entertainment-related merchandise”), a nascent mobile-gaming arm, an e-book business and advertisements; iQiyi operates a “freemium” model which allows stingier users to stream some content free of charge provided they agree to watch ads.

　　和Netflix一样，爱奇艺也向客户提供一份深度的授权原创内容目录。与几乎完全依赖订阅费的Netflix不同，爱奇艺有多个收入来源。爱奇艺第二季度74亿元的收入中，会员费占了一半多，会员月费19.8元(合2.87美元)起。其余的收入主要来自其销售各种娱乐相关产品的在线商店，其新开发的移动游戏部门，电子书业务和广告收入。爱奇艺以一种 “免费增值”模式运营，允许不愿花钱购买会员的用户免费观看一些内容，前提是他们要观看广告。

　　3. Conveniently for iQiyi, which does little business outside its home market, Netflix is blocked in China, under laws that ban a lot of foreign content. But that is not to say that China is free from the streaming wars of the sort that pits Netflix against rivals like Disney, HBO (owned by at&t) and NBC Universal (belonging to Comcast). Far from it. Mr Gong is battling Tencent Video, part of the eponymous technology conglomerate. It overtook iQiyi at the end of June with 114m video subscribers to iQiyi’s 105m (see chart). Mr Gong’s firm shed 14m subscribers in the most recent quarter while Tencent Video, which also runs a freemium model and charges subscribers 20 yuan a month, added 2m.

　　爱奇艺几乎没有国外业务，而网飞在中国被屏蔽，因为中国法律禁止了很多国外的内容。但这并不是说中国流媒体没有像网飞一样面临各种纷争，此前网飞与迪士尼、HBO(美国电话电报公司所有)和NBC环球(康卡斯特公司所有)等展开了竞争。并非如此。龚宇和腾讯旗下的腾讯视频竞争正是激烈。6月底，腾讯视频用户为1.14亿，超过了爱奇艺的1.05亿 (见图表)。爱奇艺上一季度用户流失了1400万，而腾讯则增加了200万用户。腾讯视频也采用免费增值模式，每月向用户收取20元会员费。

　　4. IQiyi insists the setback was down to one-off factors, such as virus-induced disruption to film production, which temporarily emptied the content pipeline. Perhaps. But Tencent Video offers a richer selection of English-language content, including hit television series like “Chernobyl” and “Silicon Valley”. More important, the rivalry between Tencent Video and iQiyi is a proxy war between mighty Tencent and fading Baidu, a search firm that is iQiyi’s majority owner. Indeed, iQiyi seemed to concede as much in its latest annual report, writing that “competitors include well-capitalised companies that are capable of offering compensation packages more attractive to talents.”

　　爱奇艺坚称，用户流失是一次性因素比如新冠导致的电影拍摄中断，内容渠道不畅导致的。也许确实是这样。但腾讯视频向用户提供了英文内容，包括正在热播的《切尔诺贝利》和《硅谷》等电视剧。更重要的是，此次爱奇艺和腾尊的竞争，是其母公司腾讯和正在衰落的搜索引擎百度之间的竞争。百度是爱奇艺的大股东。事实上，爱奇艺最新的年度报告中似乎也默认了这一点，报告中称：“竞争对手是资本充足的公司，能够为人才提供更具吸引力的薪酬。”

　　5. Still, as Westerners who pay for a few video subscriptions can attest, streaming is not a zero-sum game. Gigi Zhou of Bocom International, a broker, reckons the Chinese market will soon be big enough to sustain both iQiyi and Tencent Video, which also has yet to make money. Ms Zhou expects 400m Chinese to subscribe to video-streaming platforms by 2023, up from some 300m in 2019. So long as no new rival emerges, each firm could capture around 150m, helping them spread costs over more subscribers and so turn a profit.

　　不过，正如一些付费订阅视频的西方人所证明的那样，流媒体的纷争并不是零和游戏。交银国际的经纪人周琪琪(Gigi Zhou)认为，中国市场很快就会壮大到能够支撑爱奇艺和腾讯视频，两家公司都还未实现盈利。周琪琪预计，到2023年，中国将有4亿人订阅视频流媒体平台，而2019年仅有3亿人。只要没有新的竞争对手出现，两家公司每家都能获得大约1.5亿用户，他们可以将成本分摊到更多的用户身上，从而实现盈利。

　　6. Before streaming peace can break out, iQiyi faces another fight. On August 13th it said it was under investigation by America’s Securities and Exchange Commission after a short-seller accused it of inflating sales data, a charge it denies. If found guilty, it may have to delist from New York’s Nasdaq exchange. The firm’s stable share price implies investors’ faith in battle hardened Mr Gong is unshaken.

　　在流媒体战争和解之前，爱奇艺还面临着另一场战斗。8月13日，爱奇艺表示正在接受美国证券交易委员会的调查，此前一名卖空者指控爱奇艺夸大销售数据，但是爱奇艺否认了这一指控。如果爱奇艺被查确实有在夸大，那么它可能不得不从纽约纳斯达克交易所摘牌。公司稳定的股价意味着投资者对龚宇是很有信心的。

　　精读解析

　　篇章结构P1：爱奇艺在中国享有盛誉。P2：爱奇艺的收入来源构成。P3—P4：爱奇艺和腾讯的战争。P5：爱奇艺和腾讯的战争并不是零和游戏，两家公司最终能够实现和解。P6：爱奇艺当前面临夸大销售指控。

　　重点单词duopolistic双头垄断的；双寡头的【例句】On the basis of a non - cooperative game - theoretic model, we provide R&D investment Nash equilibrium outcome under duopolistic competition.  通过利用非合作博弈论方法建模，本文给出了这种情况下R&D投资额的纳什均衡解。

　　lossmaking /' lɒs,meɪkɪŋ / adj. 老是亏损的【例句】It reportedly turned a profit in June 2019, a feat in the world of loss-making unicorns.据报道，该公司在2019年6月实现盈利，这在亏损的独角兽行业是一大伟绩。

　　subscription /s ə b'skr ɪ p ʃ ( ə )n/ n. 捐助, 订阅, 签名；捐款;订阅费【例句】A subscription costs 12 dollars per annum.每年订12美元的杂志。

　　merchandise /'m ɜ ː t ʃ ( ə )nda ɪ s/ n. 商品, 货物vt. 买卖, 经营【短语】general merchandise 杂货；日用商品merchandise trade 商品贸易merchandise sales 商品销售，销货merchandise on hand 现货；库存商品purchase of merchandise 商品进货general merchandise market 百货商场merchandise inventory 商品存货；商品盘存；库存商品【例句】Toothpaste is stock merchandise in a drugstore.牙膏是杂货店里的常备商品。

　　nascent /'næs( ə )nt/ adj. 初期的；开始存在的，发生中的【例句】Younger artists, such as the nascent Impressionists, also admired him.年轻一代的画家也很崇拜他，如早期的印象派画家。

　　freemium免费增值注：免费增值，是一种属于专有软件（通常是像软件、多媒体、游戏或Web服务等数字产品）的一种商业模式，它提供免费使用，但其中的一些先进的特性、功能或虚拟物品则需要付费。该英文单词“freemium”是一个混合型新词，来源于“free”（免费）和“premium”（额外费用）。

　　eponymous /i ˈ p ɔ nim ə s/ adj. （书、戏剧等中的人物）与作品同名的；以……的名字命名的【例句】The unwieldy zaniness of Bulgakov's great novel—whose action involves the devil and his retinue visiting Stalin's Moscow, the blighted affair of the eponymous characters, and the master's novel about Pontius Pilate and Jesus—somehow hasn't deterred stage adaptations.魔鬼极其随从造访斯大林的莫斯科，同名人物的事迹以及大师所著关于比拉多和耶稣的故事，但这些都没有阻碍舞台剧本的改写。

　　conglomerate /k ə n'gl ɒ m( ə )r ə t/ n. (多种经营的)联合大企业,企业集团；聚集物;砾岩【例句】We work with some of the major energy conglomerates.我们的客户包括一些大型能源企业。

　　setback /'setbæk/ n. 挫折; 阻碍【例句】They achieved some victories despite these setbacks.尽管受到这些挫折, 他们还是取得了一些胜利。

　　one-off / ˈwʌnˌɔ:f / adj. 一次性的n. 一次性事物【例句】It was just a one-off; it won't happen again.这事绝无仅有；不会再发生了。

　　proxy /'prɒksɪ/ n. 代表权;代理权(尤指投票);代理人,代表【例句】Your proxy will need to sign the form on your behalf.  你的代理人将须代表你在表格上签字。

　　concede /kən'siːd/ vt. & vi. 承认；出让, 容许【例句】He conceded ten points to his opponent.他让给自己的对手十分。

　　zero-sum game零和竞赛，零和博弈；零和对策注：零和博弈，又称零和游戏或零和赛局，与非零和 博弈 相对，是博弈论 的一个概念，属非合作博弈。零和博弈表示所有博弈方的利益之和为零或一个常数，即一方有所得，其他方必有所失。在零和博弈中，博弈各方是不合作的。非零和博弈表示在不同策略组合下各博弈方的得益之和是不确定的变量，故又称之为变和博弈。如果某些战略的选取可以使各方利益之和变大，同时又能使各方的利益得到增加，那幺，就可能出现参加方相互合作的局面。因此，非零和博弈中，博弈各方存在合作的可能性。国际经济中许多问题都属于非零和博弈问题，即国际经济中各方的利益并不是必然相互冲突的。

　　inflate /ɪn'fleɪt/ v. 使充气；使通货膨胀【短语】inflation n. 膨胀；通货膨胀；夸张；自命不凡inflatable adj. 膨胀的，可充气的；得意的【例句】The principal effect of the demand for new houses was to inflate prices.  对新住宅需求的主要结果是促使价格上涨。

　　delist /diː'lɪst/ vt. 把(证券等)从上场证券中除去;把…从清单中划去【例句】Jardine's fall into disfavour followed its decision in 1984 to shift its legal domicile to Bermuda, and then, a decade later, to delist its shares from the Hong Kong market. 怡和在1984年决定把法定注册地转为百慕大而十年之后，从香港市场抽牌，就此跌入冷宫。

　　unshaken /ʌn'ʃeɪk(ə)n/ adj. 不动摇的；坚决的；泰然自若的【例句】They remain unshaken in their loyalty.  他们仍然忠贞不渝。