The beautiful picture in the diversified journey, Can AI help it counter attack by "becoming beautiful with one click"| AI

In recent years, generative artificial intelligence (AIGC) has emerged frequently. Recently, a clay style filter of "ugly to dross" has captured all major social platforms. And after the single day download of the AI image software Remini, the "originator", soared to nearly 400000 times, the flagship product of Meitu (1357. HK), the "first share of the goddess concept" company, also followed, launching a local version of clay filter, which was free and open to use.

In the past year, Meitu has "achieved double growth" by taking advantage of AIGC. According to Meitu's 2023 annual report, the company's total revenue in 2023 will be 2.7 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 29.3% Net profit 370 million yuan, up 233.2% year on year. In the annual report, Metu specially stressed that the double growth of the company's total revenue and net profit benefited from AI.

Right now, Players on the subdivided track in the AI field compete with each other in the inner volume, with frequent pop points. Can Meitu, which focuses on AI technology enabling its main business, inject a long-term "booster" into its diversified territory?

Taking advantage of "clay wind"

At the beginning of May, clay filter has become the most popular social element. "Clay" related topics continued to become popular on various social platforms, and various popular videos and tutorials of "clay videos" and "clay live" emerged.

After the number of downloads of the AI image software Remini, the "originator", soared to nearly 400000 times a day, Meitu Xiuxiu, the flagship product of Meitu, launched a local version of clay filter and opened it for free.

Unlike the ugly photos with exaggerated and grotesque features such as "cross eyed, big buckteeth" output by the Remini clay filter, the beautiful clay filter outputs "net red photos" with big eyes, white skin, and sharp chin.

"Although it doesn't cost money, the exported photos always feel less soulful." After spending about ten minutes trying out all the clay filters of the perfect Tu Xiuxiu AI painting, Sun Xiaomei, a sophomore, decided to order a group of 10 Remini version clay filter photos on a second-hand platform, "which is really different from Meitu Xiuxiu. Every picture exported by Remini is surprisingly ugly and funny. "

PS、 Miss Lu, a senior user of Meitu Xiuxiu and the blogger of Meitu Xiuxiu, told the reporter that Meitu Xiuxiu's clay filter photo "is more like a refined picture with less flaws."

Interestingly, although the effect has been "doubted", Metu has indeed taken advantage of this "clay" wind. Public data shows that the use of a single "clay" filter of Meitu Xiuxiu has exceeded 2 million. From "clay pictures" to "clay short videos", and even the production of "clay Vlogs", Meitu Xiuxiu's "AI painting" function has successfully achieved dream linkage with the "AI dynamic map" function of Wink, a video editing product of Meitu Company.

Five years of "repeated defeats"

Public data shows that Meitu, founded in 2008, pioneered the "beauty economy" with an image processing software called "Meitu Xiuxiu". With its simple and easy user operation, Meitu quickly accumulated hundreds of millions of users in a short time.

At that time, Meitu launched a series of self beautification products, such as beauty cameras and beauty photos, in order to precisely locate the "beautification" needs of users, and made achievements visible to the naked eye. Its company's valuation also rose. By 2016, when Meitu entered the capital market as the "first stock of goddess concept", its monthly active users had exceeded 450 million.

According to previous media reports, at that time, the liquidation mode of Meitu was mainly advertising. Under this background, if Meitu wants to improve its valuation and imagination, it needs to explore more diversified businesses, turn traffic into a way to stabilize the retention rate of users, and then promote its commercial liquidity. Therefore, transformation and cross-border have become an important direction of Meitu's diversified version.

In 2013, Meitu began to set foot in the mobile phone field, and wanted to be a "mobile phone that makes more people beautiful". However, due to problems such as single function and vertical users, Meitu mobile phones could not break the circle, and eventually closed the mobile phone business in 2019.

In 2017, Meitu launched the Meitu Meizhuang APP and entered the beauty e-commerce industry, but after only one year of operation, Meitu sold the business to Siku.

In 2018, Meitu put forward the strategy of "Meihe Social Networking", determined to become a Chinese version of Instagram, and invested 395 million Hong Kong dollars to buy about 57.09% of the equity of Dajie.com, but only one year later, it reluctantly gave up social networking.

With mobile phones, e-commerce, medical beauty and social networking, Meitu entered the "currency circle" again after its exploration in many hot areas failed. In March 2021, Meitu announced that it had purchased 15000 units of ETH and 3791214267 units of BTC for 260 million yuan. A few months later, Meitu announced again that by the end of June 2021, the loss caused by the purchase of Bitcoin had exceeded 100 million yuan.

From March 20, 2017, Meitu's share price reached a record high of HK $22.83 per share, with a total market value of more than 100 billion. By October 12, 2022, Meitu's share price was HK $0.64 per share, becoming Faerie stock In five years, Meitu Company struggled to survive.

AIGC that "turns the tide"

"Even though many of the decisions we made in the past are wrong, the past is gone, and we can only avoid making the same mistakes at most." Wu Xinhong, the founder, chairman and CEO of Meitu, said in an interview earlier, "At present, we must seize the huge opportunity of generative AI."

With the brilliant debut of ChatGPT Sora's amazing appearance, "All products are worth doing with AI" AIGC competes with others, and Meitu is no exception.

According to Meitu's 2023 annual report, during the reporting period, the company realized a total revenue of 2.7 billion yuan, up 29.3% year on year. After adjustment, the net profit attributable to equity holders of the parent company was 370 million yuan, up 233.2% year on year. As for the outbreak of annual performance in 2023, Metu attributed it to the substantial growth of image and design product business revenue driven by generative AI related technologies in its annual report.

In terms of business, the core businesses of Meitu are image and design product business, Meiye solution business and advertising business. The financial report shows that the annual revenue of the three businesses is 1.327 billion yuan, 569 million yuan and 759 million yuan respectively. Among them, in 2023, the revenue of Meitu's image and design product business, which has the highest correlation with AI, was 1.327 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 52.8%, much higher than the growth of other businesses.

In addition, what directly drives the growth of Meitu's image and design product business is user paid subscription. The financial report shows that as of December 31, 2023, the number of paid subscribers of Meitu exceeded 911 million, with a year-on-year growth of 62.3%, a record high. In the financial report, Meitu pointed out that this growth was mainly due to the application of AIGC technology. Meitu said, "AI is the core competitiveness that drives Meitu from life scenes to productivity scenes. Meitu users process hundreds of millions of pictures and videos every day, and about 83% of them use the pan AI function."

In 2023, Meitu released seven AI products, including the AI visual creation tool WHEE AI oral video tool shooting, desktop AI video editing tool WinkStudio, Meitu Design Studio 2.0, which focuses on AI commercial design AI Digital person The generation tool DreamAvatar, Meitu AI assistant RoboNeo and Meitu visual model MiracleVision.

Drive and dilemma

Obviously, AI image generation market is a growing market. Relevant reports predict that by 2030, the size of AI image generation market alone will reach 917 million dollars, with a compound annual growth rate of 17.4%.

However, for Meitu itself, its outstanding performance in 2023 may only verify the correctness of its main business strategy of focusing on AI technology empowerment to a certain extent. At present, with the help of AI, Meitu still needs to hold the ticket for the second half of the journey.

At the technical level, AI Beauty is still at the initial stage of exploration. If we want to better leverage AI, Meitu is facing challenges from data, computing power and other aspects.

According to previous media reports, in the first two quarters of 2023, AIGC is booming, and the total number of monthly active users of Meitu has only slightly increased by 1.7% year on year. Among them, the monthly activity of the flagship product Meitu Xiuxiu has even declined. At present, faced with such problems as declining monthly activity, shrinking traffic, and declining advertising cash flow, Metu also appears to be somewhat weak.

"In fact, many enterprises have the ability to rely on AI technology to provide personalized services. For Meitu, the advantages are small, and Meitu still needs to find its core business competitiveness." Some insiders pointed out that as a tool product, increasing the use frequency and extending the retention time is a breakthrough path. However, Meitu has obstinately focused on such fields as drawing revision, and will still face the dilemma of transformation failure if it fails to develop real technical capabilities.

In addition, the external environment such as market expansion and more players also makes the industry more competitive. Byte, Tencent, Fasthand and other Internet giants have successively entered the market, As Tiamat and other start-ups continue to make efforts, Metu still needs to find a suitable starting point.

Right now, Players on the subdivided track in the AI field compete with each other to make moves. Faced with new challenges, how does Meitu enable the long-term effectiveness of its main business with AI technology“ drive ”The realization of counter attack is waiting to be seen.