20210329经济学人精读|中国的youtube—哔哩哔哩的发展与盈亏情况

本文节选自《经济学人》2021.3.27期Business版块的一篇文章《China’s YouTube》，简单介绍了bilibili营收及发展情况

本文总共6段，建议大家先自主阅读原文，再学习精读笔记。

文末会总结此次学习写作可以使用的词句，读者也可自己总结。会定期将内容进行总结，做成word分享，希望大家也能坚持学习

The mission statement of Bilibili, often dubbed “China’s YouTube”,stands out for its modesty. Instead of promising to change the world, the firm aspires merely to “enrich the everyday life of young generations in China”. If user figures are a guide, the Chinese young feel enriched. In the last quarter of 2020 the number of people who used the service at least once a month shot up by half from a year earlier, to 202m. Nearly nine in ten were under the age of 35. Videos on the platform, which range from sports highlights to selfhelp lectures and everything in between, attract an average of 1.2bn daily views.

mission statement：宗旨说明，英文：an official statement of the aims of a company or an organization，即一家公司或组织的目标【词汇积累】

dubbed：dub，称作，起绰号，A is dubbed被动形式表示……被称作【词汇积累】

stand out for sth：以……脱颖而出，引人注目【词组积累】

aspire to do or sth：立志于做某事【词组积累】

user figures：用户数据【词汇积累】

shot up by half from a year earlier：shot up表示激增，猛涨，by half表示增长的量，表示比一年前猛增了一半【词组积累】

selfhelp lectures：self-help表示自助的，可以表示自主学习课程【地道表达】

1.2 bn daily views：12亿每日观看次数【地道表达】

Bilibili，常被称作中国的YouTube，以其谦虚的公司宗旨而引人注目，他并非承诺改变世界，而只是希望“丰富中国年轻一代的日常生活”。如果以用户数据为依据，中国年轻人确实感受到了充实感。在2020年的最后一个季度，每月至少使用这项服务一次的人数比一年前猛增了一半，达到了2.02亿，将近十分之九的人年龄在35岁以下。该平台上的视频，从体育高光时刻到自主学习，以及介于两者之间的一切，平均每天吸引12亿人次观看。

Launched in 2009 as a website for fans of Japanese anime, Bilibili hasevolved into a diversified entertainment group. In recent months even Western musicians (such as Jessie J and Charlie Puth) and Hollywood stars (including Dwayne Johnson) have rushed to set up Bilibili accounts. Investors, too, have taken notice. Between March 2018, when the firm listed in New York, and February this year its market capitalization rose more than tenfold, to $41bn. On March 23rd it raised $2.6bn in a secondary listing in Hong Kong.

Launch：上市。除了发射（火箭）外，还有上市的意思，launched in 2009 于2009年上市。下文中的list in New York中的list也有上市的意思【词汇积累】

evolved into：进化成为【词组积累】

rush to set up Bilibili accounts：rush to do争先箜篌地做某事，set up …… accounts则表示开设创建……的账号【词组积累】

Between …… and ……：表示在……和……之间，可以为两个时间段之间【词组积累】

Bilibili于2009年上市，是一家面向日本动漫迷的网站，现已发展成为一家多元化的娱乐集团。近几个月来，甚至连西方音乐家（Jessie J和Charlie Puth）和好莱坞明星（包括Dwayne Johnson）都争先恐后地开设了Bilibili账户。投资者也注意到了这一点。从2018年3月该公司在纽约上市到今年2月，其市值增长了10倍多，达到410亿美元。3月23日，在香港二次上市中筹集了26亿美元。

Unlike YouTube, Bilibili refuses to clutter usergenerated videos with adverts. That way, the thinking goes, it can attract new users put off by such interruptions, and convince them to spend more time on the platform. The central aim, as described by executives, is to “convert” this “sticky community” into “paying users”. Bilibili does so in two main ways: by offering games where players purchase virtual items to advance to the next level, and access to original and licensed firms and series. This Netflixlike business, launched in 2018, now has 14.5m paying subscribers.

clutter：~ sth (up) (with sth/sb) 凌乱地塞满；乱堆放to fill a place with too many things, so that it is untidy。文中指的是bilibili不会在用户上传的视频中，随意添加广告：clutter user-generated videos with adverts【词汇积累】

put off by：被……推迟，这里指的是bilibili运用不放广告的理念吸引那些被广告阻碍看视频的用户【词组积累】

by offering games where players purchase virtual items to advance to the next level：这里的定语从句where后面句子是完整的，不缺成分，where表示玩家在游戏中发生购买行为时的场所，也可以理解为in which

与YouTube不同，Bilibili拒绝在用户自制的视频中添加广告，这样做可以吸引新用户推迟这种中断，并说服他们花更多的时间在平台上。正如高管们所描述的，核心目标是将这个“粘性社区”转化为“付费用户”。Bilibili主要通过两种方式实现这一点：提供玩家购买虚拟物品以提升到下一个级别的游戏，以及访问原始和许可的公司和系列产品。这种类似Netflix的业务于2018年推出，目前拥有1450万付费用户。

The share of users who pay for things like ingame accessories and subscriptions has risen from 3.9% in 2018 to 8.0% in 2020. Receipts from these sources helped Bilibili nearly to double its revenues in each of the past three years, to 12bn yuan ($1.7bn) in 2020. It also sells adverts on parts of its platform, but they made up less than fifth of its sales.

accessory：配件、附属品，文中指游戏中的付费物品，in-game accessories【词汇积累】

double its revenues in each of the past three years：：在过去的三年中收入每年都翻了一番【地道表达】

支付游戏内附属品和订阅费的用户比例从2018年的3.9%上升到2020年的8.0%。这些来源的收入帮助Bilibili在过去三年中每年的收入翻了一番，到2020年达到120亿元人民币（合17亿美元）。它也在部分平台上销售广告，但这些广告所占的份额还不到其销售额的四分之一。

All this has yet to make any money. Last year Bilibili reported an operating loss of 3bn yuan, double the shortfall in 2019. Profits may remain elusive; the company must invest to maintain a pipeline of addictive games and pays top dollar to outbid big streamers like iQiyi for the rights to popular movies and shows its nascentsubscription business needs.

All this has yet to make any money：然而这还没有赚到一分钱

Shortfall：亏空，缺口【词汇积累】

pays top dollar：付高价【词汇积累】

outbid sb for sth：出价高于某人【词组积累】

nascent：新生的，萌芽的【词汇积累】

然而所有这些都还没有赚到钱。去年，Bilibili公布了30亿元的经营亏损，是2019年亏损额的两倍。利润可能仍然难以捉摸；该公司必须通过投资维持游戏渠道，并支付高价，以超过爱奇艺等大型流媒体，获得热门电影的版权，并展示其新生的订阅业务需求。

Bilibili’s executives are sanguine. “As our net revenues continue to grow, we do not expect our total content costs as a percentage of total revenue to substantially increase,” they wrote in theprospectus for the firm’s Hong Kong listing. Its share price, down by a third since its February peak, suggests investors want finally to see some proof.

Sanguine：充满信心的，乐观的【词汇积累】

Substantially：除了基本上，总体来说，还有大大地，大幅地【熟词僻义】

Prospectus：招股书

Bilibili的高管们很乐观。“随着我们的净收入继续增长，我们不希望我们的总内容成本占总收入的百分比大幅增加，”他们写道，在该公司的香港上市的招股书。该公司股价自2月份高点以来下跌了三分之一，这表明投资者终于希望看到一些证据。

总结