The Baidu-backed iQIYI reported on Tuesday that that it had more than halved its losses in the three months from July to September that make up the third quarter of its financial year. Net loss attributable to iQIYI was RMB1.2 billion , compared to net losses of RMB3.7 billion in the same period in 2019. Losses per ADR share were RMB1.61 , compared to diluted net loss of RMB5.04 in the same period of 2019.
Revenues were down by 3% to RMB7.2 billion , the revenue earned from subscriptions increasing 7% to RMB4.0 billion . Advertising revenues fell 11% to RMB1.8 billion . Lower spending on new content also depressed third party licensing income. Content distribution revenues plunged 43% to RMB392 million . “The decrease was primarily due to less content titles we distributed to other platforms during the quarter,” the company said.
The iQIYI management says it has learned lessons. “In the coming quarters, we may continue to see fluctuations in the number of subscribers, driven by the normalization of user behavior and content pipeline,” it said in a regulatory filing.