On December 3, the second 123 Knowledge Festival, an event orchestrated by leading Chinese mobile audio sharing platform ximalaya FM, came to a successful conclusion. According to the final data, this year’s Knowledge Festival achieved a record turnover of 196 million yuan, up nearly 284 percent compared to the previous edition.
Paying for instructive online content, referred to in China as “knowledge payment”, and the hosting of special shopping days focused on the purchase of such content or “knowledge festivals”, have, over the last two years, become quite accepted in the Chinese marketplace. Yet, the event launched by ximalaya FM is the first content-themed shopping day. The roll out of the concept is closely related to the recent rise and acceptance of knowledge payment in China.
Knowledge payment as an industry in its own right has experienced vigorous growth in recent years, especially since 2016, which many in China have characterized as the “year of knowledge payment”. The number of users willing to pay for instructive or educational content soared 300 percent to 50 million in 2016. On average, one out of every 30 Chinese consumers is willing to pay for knowledge. This year, on the back of increasing user demand, market penetration and expansion of the industry chain, the knowledge payment market is expected to balloon to between 30 billion and 50 billion yuan, an increase of 300 percent to 400 percent from a year earlier.