2021年经济学人 B站--野心勃勃的"中国版YouTube"(2)（在线收听）

Bilibili does so in two main ways: by off?ering games where players purchase virtual items to advance to the next level, and access to original and licensed fi?lms and series. This Netfl?ix-like business, launched in 2018, now has 14.5m paying subscribers.

B站主要通过两种方式实现转化这一目标：一种是向玩家提供需要氪金购买虚拟物品才能升级的游戏，另一种是提供原版和授权的电影及电视剧。这项类似网飞的业务于2018年推出，目前拥有1450万付费用户。

The share of users who pay for things like in-game 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 (compared with the vast majority of YouTube’s).

游戏内购和付费订阅等的用户比例从2018年的3.9%上升到2020年的8.0%。这些渠道的收入帮助B站在过去三年中的年收入都近乎翻了一番，到2020年达到120亿元人民币（合17亿美元）。B站也在其平台的部分页面销售广告位，但广告收入只占其销售额的不到五分之一（相比之下，油管的绝大多数销售额都来自广告）。

All this has yet to make any money. Last year Bilibili reported an operating loss of 3bn yuan, double the shortfall in 2019. Profi?ts 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 nascent subscription business needs.

所有这些都还没有让B站赚到钱。去年，B站公布了30亿元的经营亏损，是2019年亏损额的两倍。B站的盈利仍是未知数；该公司必须靠投资来维持令人沉迷的游戏不断上新，并要以高于爱奇艺等大型流媒体的巨额价格竞争热门电影的版权，从而满足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 the prospectus for the fi?rm’s Hong Kong listing. Its share price, down by a third since its February peak, suggests investorswant fi?nally to see some proof.

B站的高管们非常乐观。B站在香港上市时，他们在招股书中写道，“随着净收入持续增长，我们预计总内容成本占总收入的比例不会大幅增加。”该公司的股价自2月份达到峰值后下跌了三分之一，这表明投资者最终希望能看到一些实质证据。