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Bilibili Captures the Booming Virtual YouTuber Industry in China
SHANGHAI, June 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Bilibili Inc. ("Bilibili" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: BILI and HKEX: 9626), an iconic brand and a leading video community for young generations in China, is happy to share that ANYCOLOR Inc. (TSE: 5032), a leading Virtual YouTuber ("VTuber") management company in Japan backed by Bilibili, was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, becoming the first listed company in the VTuber industry.
VTubers of VirtuaReal Project jointly launched by Bilibili and NIJISANJI
Founded in May 2017, ANYCOLOR focuses on the incubation and management of VTubers, and is also the parent company of the well-known VTuber project NIJISANJI. As one of its early investors, Bilibili led ANYCOLOR’s Series A financing in August 2019 and is currently its third largest shareholder. Bilibili has promoted the localization of ANYCOLOR’s VTuber business in China and cooperated with ANYCOLOR to launch the Chinese VTuber initiative VirtuaReal Project, which is currently the number one local VTuber group in China.
Since 2018, Bilibili has been supporting NIJISANJI to enter the Chinese market and became the exclusive agent for its VTubers in China, responsible for the launching and livestreaming of NIJISANJI’s VTubers on Bilibili, concert livestreaming, VTubers merchandise sales and more, becoming an important partner for ANYCOLOR ‘s overseas business.
At present, NIJISANJI has nearly 50 VTubers on Bilibili. On May 6, 2022, NIJISANJI’s VTuber "Vox" made his China livestreaming debut on Bilibili, gaining over a million fans on the platform. VirtuaReal Project now has over 70 VTubers on Bilibili, including Ling Yuan Yousa, Nana7mi, Aza and other popular figures. VirtuaReal VTubers have accumulated over 10 million followers on Bilibili.
The VTuber industry is booming in China. From June 2020 to June 2021, there were 32,412 VTuber livestreaming accounts on Bilibili, an increase of 40% year-on-year. Over 86% of Bilibili users are young people under 35 years old, including a high proportion of game and animation fans which highly correlates with the VTubers audience.
In the future, Bilibili will continue to deepen its cooperation with ANYCOLOR in the areas of VTuber content production, technology enhancement, commercialization operations and global expansion. Bilibili will also continue to focus on Japanese start-ups in the ACG industry, VTuber and cultural entertainment industries and support potential companies to develop their business globally.
ABOUT BILIBILI INC
Bilibili is an iconic brand and a leading video community with a mission to enrich the everyday life of young generations in China. Bilibili offers a wide array of video-based content with All the Videos You Like as its value proposition. Bilibili builds its community around aspiring users, high-quality content, talented content creators and the strong emotional bond among them. Bilibili pioneered the "bullet chatting" feature, a live commenting function that has transformed the viewing experience by displaying thoughts and feelings of other audience viewing the same video. It has now become the welcoming home of diverse interests for young generations in China and the frontier to promote Chinese culture across the world.
