Kuaishou published its 2020 Biannual Content Report covering the first six months of 2020. The number of daily active users on the platform has reached 170 million, making the platform one of the most promising marketing channels. In order to help marketers get the latest insights about Kuaishou, the team at ChoZan has translated the report. The Chinese version can be accessed here.

1. Demographics of Kuaishou users

From July 2019 to June 2020 there were around 300 million content creators on Kuaishou with 48% female and 52% male. 70% were under the age of 30. There are over 100 million daily active e-commerce users on Kuaishou. 

In contrast to Douyin, Kuaishou is more popular among users in lower tier cities. The distribution of users by city tier is as follows: 

• 1st Tier – 15%
• 2nd Tier – 30%
• 3rd Tier – 24%
• 4th Tier – 31%

2. Interests and preferences of Kuaishou users

From January to June 2020, lifestyle was the most popular category for posted content, making up 29.8% of all content. The least popular category was travel.

The users from these provinces recorded the most short videos (in descending order): Hebei, Guangdong, Shandong, Yunnan and Liaoning. 

The users from these provinces viewed the most short videos (in descending order): Guangdong, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu and Shandong. 

3. Most popular live streaming categories

Some of the most popular live streaming categories on Kuaishou are product sales and recommendations, chat videos, and entertainment. Female live streamers favour talking about their daily life and performances showcasing a talent. Male hosts prefer live streaming about science, education and gaming. 

Live streaming hosts are mostly from Hebei, Guangdong, Liaoning, Zhejiang, and Henan while audiences are mostly from Guangdong, Hebei, Shandong, Liaoning and Jiangsu.

It’s also interesting to see how different generations of hosts receive different kinds of feedback from their audiences. Post-90s hosts received the most likes and comments. Post-80s hosts got the most gifts, Post-70s the most comments, and Post-60s received the most daily likes.

4. Viral content on Kuaishou

@登上时代封面的外卖小哥
Gao Zhixiao became the first takeout delivery man to be on the cover of the Time magazine as part of a series featuring 6 people directly impacted by Covid-19.

@MMA张伟丽
Zhang Weili was China’s first UFC world champion and marked her first successful UFC Strawweight title defense in 2020.

@余昌平医生
Doctor Yu Changping was the first infected medical expert of COVID-19 in Hubei Province. He went on to create short pop science videos about the novel coronavirus pneumonia and shared his recovery process on Kuaishou.

@小英夫妻：温州一家人
A Chinese farming couple posted videos of themselves shuffle dancing in a field to spread joy and share their optimistic attitude in times of hardship.

@朝阳冬泳怪鸽
The catchphrase “Aoligei” (奥利给) was used as a term of encouragement and went viral on Kuaishou after viral video star Huang Chunsheng’s constant features of the phrase.

@周同学
Pop King Jay Chou had 10 million followers after joining Kuaishou for just 70 hours. His music has racked up 600 million plays while the music video for his new song “Mojito” has 55.3 million plays and 1.84 million likes. His new song “Mojito” also stimulated a 37% spike in searches for the keyword “Cuba” on Kuaishou the next day. On July 1st, just one month after joining Kuaishou, Jay’s followers had grown to 21 million.

5. Kuaishou’s event coverage

January 24, 2020
Kuaishou’s exclusive interactive partnership with the 2020 Spring Festival Gala generated 780 million views during its live broadcast. Kuaishou handed out five rounds of virtual red envelopes totaling a record-breaking 1 billion RMB.

February 29, 2020
The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art presented “An Online Garden Concert: A Sonic Cure.” For the project, a series of improvised performances were staged in a traditional garden. They were later presented as a composite video and sound installation.

May 28, 2020
Climber Ru Zhigang recorded himself climbing Mount Everest through short videos and live streaming.

6. A live streaming e-commerce showcase on Kuaishou

Gree Electric Appliances chairwoman Dong Mingzhu, also known as the “home appliances queen” drove impressive sales with 16 million views on her debut 3-hour live stream.

100 million RMB in sales in the first 30 minutes
200 million RMB in sales in 100 minutes
A total of 310 million RMB in sales during the 3-hour event.

It also featured other influencers such as @李鑫 (with 3.84 million followers), @驴嫂平荣JLV (with 21.7 million followers) and @二驴的 (with 40.1 million followers).

The campaign marked the first collaborative sales event between Kuaishou and a large home appliance brand. It was also the first time Kuaishou gave out subsidies of up to 10 million RMB for products to be sold during live streaming.

300 portable air conditioners sold within seconds
67,000+ wall-mounted air conditioners sold
10,000+ portable juice blenders sold

7. Kuaishou during the COVID-19 outbreak

On January 23rd, Kuaishou donated 100 million RMB to the Wuhan government, becoming the first technology company to make such a large donation in COVID-19 relief efforts. 

Kuaishou’s live streamed COVID-19 coverage accumulated over 8 billion views. CCTV News broke Kuaishou’s record for non-stop streaming by broadcasting for 1,791 hours.

On February 14th, Kuaishou started the Medical Staff Health Care Initiative and donated 12 million RMB to help over 10,000 frontline medical workers in Hubei. 

8. Most popular keywords during Covid-19

The most popular pet videos featured dogs (40%) and cats (14%). 

During lockdown, the 10 most popular search keywords were (in descending order): Wuhan, New Year, food, masks, donation, movie recommendations, epidemic, 2020, hospital discharge and holidays. 

The views of at-home haircut videos grew by 54%. Other hobbies and life skills that gained increasing attention include cooking, sewing, flower arranging and paper-cutting.

9. Popular gaming categories

There were over 90 million daily active users on gaming channels.

During home lockdown, the top 5 most popular game categories were first person shooter, multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), sandbox games, chess and racing. 

Distribution of views for different game-related content: 42% best game play compilations, 29% funny games, 14% professional tutorials and 15% others.

10. Home cooking content rose in popularity

The top searches for food cooking tutorials were: dumplings, spring pancakes, wood mushrooms, shrimp, bread and milk tea. 

During home lockdown, home cooking and food prep content increased by a multiple of 90.

Preferences for uploading food-related short videos showed obvious growth among the Post-90’s and Post-00’s generations. The generational distribution of creators for food-related short videos was as follows: 

Post-80s: 41% (the major driving force) 
Post-90s + 00s: 44% 
Post-60s + 70s: 15% 

Favourite foods for people in the north of China – hot pot, dumplings and sugar coated fruit skewers. During New Year’s Eve, northern food content grew 405%.

Favourite foods for people in the south of China – zongzi (sticky rice dumplings), pizza and skewers. During New Year’s Eve, southern food content grew 226%.

Content centred on the following foods grew during home lockdown (listed in descending order of popularity): homemade cold noodles, milk tea, hot noodles, homemade cake, cold starch jelly, homemade spicy snacks, chicken wings and xiaolongbao.

11. Importance of education content on Kuaishou

There were over 55,000 Kuaishou education ecosystem teachers on the platform and over 16.09 million students covered. Over 3.39 million hours of paid lessons were offered. Among companies that joined Kuaishou were VIPKID, TAL Education Group and New Oriental.

12. Fitness short videos grew in popularity

During home lockdown, there was big growth in fitness short videos. 

By sports (in descending order):
1) hula hooping
2) skipping
3) badminton
4) hacky sack (Chinese style, it’s played with a feathered disc called a jianzi)
5) basketball

By fitness equipment:
1) pilates ring
2) elliptical machine
3) rowing machine
4) yoga ball
5) dumbbells 

On February 17th, Kuaishou live-streamed a series of tutorials with 107 live streaming sessions. It lasted 97 hours and amassed over 3 million views.

13. Preparation for the Gaokao (University Entrance Exams)

From March 30th to March 31st, search volume for the word “gaokao” increased 20 times. 

Students from the following provinces were the most active “gaokao” searchers on Kuaishou: Henan, Fujian, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Anhui, Jilin, Hebei, Hunan, Hainan, Zhejiang.

The most popular universities on Kuaishou were: Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University, Wuhan University, Fudan University, Lanzhou University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Renmin University of China, Beijing Normal University.

Over 500 open classes from famous universities have been published on Kuaishou with over 100 million views.

14. Kuaishou’s live streaming infrastructure

The top industries entering the platform from January to June were:

1) Apparel
2) Local services 
3) Home products 
4) Automobile 
5) Beauty products 
6) Mobile/digital products 
7) Education 
8) Others 

On February 6th , Kuaishou launched the Spring Project to support small and medium enterprises. six major industries received special support: Apparel, Home Products, Beauty, Food, Real Estate and Hospitality. 

On March 27th and 28th, Kuaishou launched a Cloud Shopping campaign. With the support of Kuaishou users, the event racked up sales of over 50 million RMB in one day while brand followers increased by 13,200%.

From March to May, Kuaishou launched a Super Brand Day campaign. Total turnover of the first 7 live streaming sessions was over 620 million RMB, and over 5.54 million orders were received.

On April 29th, Kuaishou established its first innovation center in Foshan.

From June 6th to16th, Kuaishou organised the first 616 Shopping Festival.

On June 6th, Kuaishou announced plans to build its intelligent cloud big data center project in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia.

On June 24th, Kuaishou established its live streaming e-commerce headquarters in Chengdu with plans to promote short videos that use 5G+ technology. 

15. Beauty trends on Kuaishou

During home lockdown, the trends getting the most attention were eye makeup, bangs and nude makeup. 

The most searched beauty products during home lockdown were lipstick and facial masks.

16. Travel content on Kuaishou

Short videos about travelling on the platform grew 127%. 

The attractions with the most short video views are: Qinhuangdao Beidaihe, Shaoxing Yongkang, Tiananmen Square, Mount Everest Base Camp and Lijiang Old Town. 

#Travelling with Kuaishou# (#跟着快手去旅游#)

There were 530 million total plays for the event and over 117 thousand check-in travel videos posted. 

60% of travel content hosts are male and 40% are female. Most of them are from the following provinces: Hebei, Shandong, Guangdong, Yunnan and Gansu.

The top 5 scenic spots for road trips are: 
1) Hangzhou West Lake (Xi Hu), Hangzhou 
2) Mount Tai, Tai’an 
3) Dameisha Waterfront Park, Shenzhen 
4) Fenghuang Ancient City, Xiangxi 
5) Qiandao Lake, Hangzhou

17. E-commerce on Kuaishou

18. Kuaishou’s 616 Shopping Festival campaign

The top food brands are Kweichow Moutai, Be & Cheery and Zihaiguo. 

The top apparel brands are Nike, 361 and Balabala.

The top jewelry brands are China Gold, Kin Liu Fook and Zocai. 

The top tech brands are Apple, Huawei and Supor.

The top beauty brands are Kans, OSM and Perfect Diary. 

On May 27th, Kuaishou and JD announced a partnership to promote the 616 Shopping Festival. It was called the “20 billion Yuan Giveaway Shopping Extravaganza”.

On June 16th, Kuaishou and JD.com co-launched the online sales campaign and supported sellers with 1.42 billion RMB in relief payments to enable them to offer big discounts.

In the first 10 minutes, orders topped 100 million RMB.

The total duration of e-commerce live streaming watched was 480 million hours.

19. Kuaishou’s popularity in rural areas 

The views for all short videos produced by users from Haitouzhen, a small fishing town, from January to June was 400 million. Viewers were shared equally with 50% female and 50% male. The generational distribution for active hosts was as follows:

Post-00’s: 4%
Post-90’s: 54%
Post-80’s: 38%
Post-70’s: 3%
Post-60’s: 1%.

86% of hosts featured product sales in their live streaming. 90% of the featured products were seafood or fisheries’ produce.

Cities that purchased the most products from Haitouzhen were: 

1) Beijing 
2) Linyi 
3) Harbin 
4) Tianjin 
5) Changchun

The top-selling products from Haitouzhen were: seaweed salad, lobster tail, scallops, grilled shrimp and wild prawns.

20. Governmental live streaming on Kuaishou 

13,000+ – The number of governmental accounts. 
280,000 – The number of videos published by governmental accounts from January to June. 
255.9 billion – The number of video plays for governmental videos from January to June. 
15.3 billion – The number of likes received from January to June. 

The official governmental channels that published the top 10 most-watched videos were: Pingan Hubei, China Police, Health Guangdong, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Health China, People’s Armed Police, Science Mythbusters, Green Qingpu, People’s Liberation Army and Navy, Gansu Public Security.

12,507+ – The number of the live streaming sessions by government accounts. 
2.4 billion+ – The number of views for government live streams from January to June. 
7.2 billion+ – The number of likes for government live streams from January to June. 
32.61 million+ – The number of comments on the government live stream from January to June. 

21. Media on Kuaishou

22. Kuaishou’s rocketing usage, in figures

There was a 154% increase in the number of videos related to the small store economy from May 6th – June 30th.

There were 6.79 million+ views in March for the two live stream collaborations between Wuhan University and Kuaishou showing the cherry blossoms in bloom.

There was 1,013% growth in the number of videos covering the unlocking of Wuhan on April 8th.

There was an 81% increase in search volume for weddings after the unlocking of Wuhan. 

23. ChoZan’s insights about Kuaishou

Kuaishou has a strong user base across different city tiers and has actively expanded across multiple verticals that cover a wide range of lifestyle topics. Together with its massive monthly active users and impressive e-commerce performance, it’s natural to expect Kuaishou would acquire more users and in turn better data and more interest from advertisers and brands.