How live-streaming site Huya uses mobile to beat its larger competitor at its own game

Huya is a popular game-centric live-streaming platform in China known for its strong presence in mobile esports. Backed by YY and Tencent, Huya is the main competitor to Douyu.

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How live-streaming site Huya uses mobile to beat its larger competitor at its own game

Josh Ye

Published: 10:05am, 21 Nov 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Twitch might be synonymous with live-streaming games in the US, but in China, there are two giants dominating the field. Douyu is the larger of the two, but rival Huya is growing fast by focusing on a different target: Mobile games like Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile.

Huya made its platform more mobile friendly in a bid to beat its larger rival, and in a way, it’s working. Huya’s 146 million monthly active users (MAUs) might fall short of Douyu’s numbers, but streamers on Huya are more engaged, and it’s making the platform significantly more money.

But before it was one of China’s main live-streaming giants, Huya -- literally “tiger’s teeth” in Chinese -- started out as the gaming-focused unit of YY, one of China’s earliest live-streaming platforms. YY eventually spun out Huya, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018 (joining YY in the US, where its listed on Nasdaq). While Huya today isn’t solely focused on gaming, it still gets 50% of its revenue from game live streaming.

Huya was the first game-centric live-streaming site from China to go public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. (Picture: NYSE)

Together with Douyu’s 160 million MAUs, the two live-streaming platforms now control over 60% of the market. Though Douyu has more users, data from analytics firm Measurable AI shows that Huya’s paying users spend an average of more than US$30 on the platform, which is three times more than the average Douyu user.

How Douyu won the live-streaming war to become China’s Twitch

Huya’s success in courting loyal users owes a lot to its mobile strategy. The company has made its app as mobile-friendly as possible, putting an emphasis on mobile games and mobile esports tournaments.