Tag: Enterprise IT

WIMI Hologram’s US IPO Listing a Strong Technology Play

WIMI Hologram’s IPO prospectus for the US capital markets, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 27, makes clear the company’s position on technology. Since its inception, WIMI has devoted most of its research and development resources to software development. Its software engineering team is responsible for building the company-wide software platform, supporting the integration of its products and applications within its cloud infrastructure, and producing WIMI’s holographic AR-related and MR-related software and solutions, licensed to its entertainment industry customers.

WIMI has developed an innovative business model with fundamental strengths that positions it for continued leadership. It is the leading holographic augmented reality (AR) application platform in China, in terms of total revenue in 2018, according to Frost & Sullivan, and has built the most comprehensive and diversified holographic AR content library among all holographic AR solution providers in China. Its mission is to be the creator of the largest holographic AR ecosystem in China.

Content Production

Set out in the Company’s prospectus, WIMI’s leading holographic AR content production capabilities are built around image acquisition, object recognition, automated image process, and computer vision technologies. It’s engineering team and visualization design team work closely to consistently advance such visualization-related technologies and harness them to design and produce innovative holographic AR contents. Through real-time computer vision algorithms which provide an accurate pose estimation, scene recognition and tracking can be performed within seconds. Such cutting-edge algorithms also allow WIMI to perform visualization of photorealistic high-resolution renderings of products on a pixel basis.

While most peer companies may identify and capture 40 to 50 blocks of image data within a specific space unit, WIMI can collect 500 to 550 blocks, according to Frost & Sullivan. WIMI’s speed of image processing is 80% faster than the industry average, leading to improved operational efficiency. During scene reconstruction, WIMI’s automated image processing tools can perform noise cleaning and feature enhancement on the image it initially captured, enabling them to create best-in-class holographic AR designs with an industry-leading simulation degree.

Content Library

WIMI has built a comprehensive holographic AR content library as compared with peers in China. The formats of its holographic AR contents range from 3D models to holographic short videos. As of December 31, 2018, WIMI owned 4,654 ready-to-use AR holographic contents that were available to be adapted to its holographic AR products and solutions covering a wide category, including animals, cartoon characters, vehicles and foods. Among them, 2,961 proprietary and licensed intellectual properties (“IP”) were for education scenarios, 851 for tourism, 739 for arts and entertainment and 103 for popular science. In addition, the Company’s content library is also enriched by copyrighted contents it has licensed from third parties. It cooperates with various content owners, including brands, film producers and talent agencies, to adapt high-quality, popular IPs into holographic AR formats.

WIMI believe that the next-generation cloud delivery technology provides the flexibility and scalability necessary for holographic AR experience. Cloud technology is of high importance to build its comprehensive holographic AR ecosystem. It has developed its cloud architecture to work effectively in a flexible cloud environment that has a high degree of elasticity. Meanwhile, benefiting from its cloud storage and connecting capabilities, users of our integrated holographic AR software are able to access its large-size holographic AR content library on their native devices.

Big Data Capability

WIMI has developed advanced data analytics capabilities to derive actionable insights from the large amounts of data it collected from products and third-party sources. Currently, it has infiltrated a solid end-user base of approximately 350 million from which we are able to collect raw data. The Company’s processing capabilities enable it to manage extremely large volumes of data and deliver real-time analysis at scale, making it possible to continue to improve and innovate its products and services. It’s data mining and user behavioral data analytics technologies allow it to build and segment context-rich user profiles and apply such analysis in numerous applications. For instance, it has created over 2,000 user tags by analyzing user data collected through holographic AR advertising services. WIMI is also in the process of developing ads performance tracking and evaluation tools.

WIMI has developed a professional media player specifically designed for holographic AR contents. It has built-in a comprehensive set of setting parameters and editing tools used for holographic AR content playback and allows end-users to playback complex high-fidelity simulations quickly and cost-effectively. End-users are able to adjust the contrast, saturation and vibrancy of the displayed holographic AR content and create their own custom visual effect.

Experienced Management Team and Market Potential Across the Holographic AR Value Chain

Finally, WIMI benefits significantly from the experience of its founder and senior management team, who have been successfully riding the growth wave in China’s booming holographic AR industry. This management team becomes the subject of the next article in this series. As holography and AR continue to proliferate, China’s holographic AR market is fast-growing and evolving. According to Frost & Sullivan, the total market size of China’s holographic AR industry in terms of total revenues is expected to grow from RMB 3.6 billion in 2017 to RMB 454.8 billion in 2025.

Source: U.S. SEC – FORM F-1, WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc., Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), June 27, 2019.
Contact: Insight Data Institute, Mr Ronald Sims, +44 2076981963, morningstar.editors@gmail.com, www.insightdatatalking.com.

WIMI Hologram Listing helps open AR market to Foreign Capital

  • Mission “to be the creator of the largest holographic AR ecosystem in China”

WiMi Hologram Cloud, Inc, the largest holographic AR content producer in China, filed a preliminary prospectus with the SEC last week for an initial public offering (IPO) of American depositary shares, or ADSs, of up to $50,000,000. The Company intends to list the ADSs on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol “WIMI.” Having developed powerful, leading-edge holographic AR technologies, the Company aspires “to be the creator of the largest holographic AR ecosystem in China.”

WIMI offers augmented reality (AR)-based holographic products and services centered on providing an innovative, immersive and interactive holographic augmented reality experience, for ‘Customers’ who have contracted with the Company to use its products and services subject to the contracts during the relevant period, and ‘End users’, who enthral in etherial AR experiences. WIMI business offerings consist primarily of (i) Holographic AR Advertising Services, which accounted for 80.5% of revenue in fiscal 2018, and (ii) Holographic AR Entertainment Products, which accounted for 19.5% of revenue in the same period.

Holographic AR Advertising Services

The Company’s holographic AR advertising software enables real or animated 3D images and objects to be inserted in film or video footage, seamlessly interacting with the characters and scenes of such footages. The online holographic AR advertising solution embeds holographic AR ads into films and videos that are hosted by leading online streaming platforms in China. Ads produced with WIMI holographic software generated more than 6.6 billion views during fiscal 2018, compared to 4.9 billion views during fiscal 2017, representing a year on year increase of 34.7%.

The Company had 121 customers during fiscal 2018, as compared to 97 customers during fiscal 2017, and the average revenue per customer was approximately RMB 1.5 million during the year, as compared to approximately RMB 1.4 million during 2017. Average revenue per customer is calculated by dividing the total AR advertising revenue by the number of customers, while the average revenue increase was due to the improvement in technologies where we could embed more contents in the advertisements. The duration of a typical AR advertising service contract is one year.

Image 1: Holographic Application Platform (https://bit.ly/2Nq7U7Y)

Through the Company’s proprietary image and video recognition technologies, its software enables users to analyze the underlying video footages at a pixel level to identify ad spaces that can be augmented by 3D objects. Advertisers and their agencies purchase these ad spaces through application programming interface, or APIs, integrated with our systems, specifying their target audience and budgets and typically providing the 3D models to be embedded in the videos. When the ad space is detected, and 3D objects are generated, the objects are embedded into the underlying streaming videos automatically on a batch-processing basis as determined by our software.

Holographic AR Entertainment Products

WIMI’s holographic AR entertainment products consist primarily of payment middleware software, game distribution platform and holographic mixed reality (‘MR’) software. Payment middleware is a software solution that connects mobile apps to payment channels, giving mobile app users convenient access to a wide range of online payment options. WIMI has cooperated with more than 55 app developers; its payment middleware has been embedded in over 1,100 mobile apps, many featuring AR functionality, which were marketed by over 300 customers in 2018.

The Company also provides payment middleware which streamlines the often time-consuming mobile payment process with a proprietary in-app payment infrastructure that allows micropayments to be made or received through an efficient, secure system without any interface redirection. Such mobile payment middleware enables app developers to store users’ payment credentials in a trusted and safe environment and eases the user burden of repeatedly entering and authenticating payment information for each transaction.

Image 2: https://bit.ly/2KShsXc

WIMI’s payment middleware can be fully integrated with various mobile apps, including live streaming, gaming, selfie, photo editing, and video-sharing, and especially those employing AR technologies. The payment middleware supports substantially all major online payment channels in China, and it is also compatible with the mainstream mobile operating systems.

About WiMi Hologram

WiMi Hologram Cloud, Inc. began commercial operations in May 2015 through Beijing WiMi Hologram Cloud Software Co., Ltd., or Beijing WiMi. WiMi Cayman was incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands as the offshore holding company in August 2018 to facilitate offshore financing. In Sept. 2018, WiMi Hologram Cloud Limited, or WiMi HK, a wholly-owned Hong Kong subsidiary, was established.

WiMi HK established a wholly-owned PRC subsidiary, Beijing Hologram WiMi Cloud Internet Technology Co., Ltd., or Hologram WiMi, or WiMi WFOE in the Company’s SEC prospectus. Substantially all of WIMI’s users and business operations are located in the PRC. Tthe Company does not have plans for any significant overseas expansion, as its primary focus remains the PRC hologram market, with its tremendous growth potential and attractive monetization opportunities. http://en.wimiar.com

Contact: Insight Data Talking Institute, Mr Ronald Sims, +44 20 7698 1963, morningstar.editors@gmail.com, www.insightdatatalking.com
Source: U.S. SEC – FORM F-1, WiMi Hologram Cloud Inc., as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 27, 2019.

WiMi Hologram Cloud, Inc files with the SEC for Nasdaq IPO

– WIMI challenges with market-leading IPO for China’s Y455 billion AR technology market

WiMi Hologram Cloud, Inc, the largest holographic AR application platform in China, filed with the U.S. SEC on June 27 for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq Global Market, trading as ‘WIMI’. As explained in the SEC prospectus, WIMI has developed an innovative business model with fundamental strengths that position it for continued leadership.

As holography and AR continue to proliferate, China’s holographic AR market is fast-growing and rapidly evolving. According to Frost & Sullivan, who prepared an industry report dated June 18, 2019 commissioned by WIMI to conduct the analysis, the total market size of China’s holographic AR industry in terms of total revenues is expected to grow from RMB 3.6 billion ($0.52 billion) in 2017 to RMB 454.8 billion ($65 billion) in 2025.

I. WIMI’s annual revenue and net income

As detailed in the prospectus, WIMI reported an annual net income of RMB 89 million ($12.9 million) for the full financial year 2018, an increase of 21.7% from the RMB 73 million ($10.6 million) recorded in 2017, and an annual revenue of RMB 225 million ($32.8 million), an increase of 17.3% on the year before. For the three months ended March 31, 2019, WIMI reported net income of RMB 37 million ($5.5 million), an increase of 68.7%, and revenue of RMB 78 million ($11.3 million), which was 59.5% improved over the same period in 2018.

II. Holographic AR advertising and AR entertainment: fast-growing and evolving

Holographic AR applications have been adopted by the entertainment and advertisement industries, which have a relatively mature hardware environment and thus facilitate the development of software and content in these fields. In the long run, there will also be applications in education, social network and communication fields though currently such applications are still limited by hardware technologies.

Entertainment

The entertainment industry was the first to enjoy the application of holographic AR. From the holograms of TuPac, Hatsune Miku, and late singer Teresa Deng to the heat of Pokemon Go, AR gaming, hologram live concerts and streaming fashion shows, the markets have genuinely embraced holographic AR.

The market size of China’s holographic AR applied in ‘Entertainment’ recorded revenue of RMB 0.6 billion in 2016, and is expected to increase at a CAGR of 83.5% from 2016 to 2020 and 92.8% from 2020 to 2025, reaching RMB180.0 billion ($260 million) by 2025. The growth is attributed to the increasing popularity of entertainment broadcast programs, especially live broadcast programs, including ceremonies, concerts, gala and sport events, where AR is greatly potentiated. The accessibility of live broadcast, livestream brought by smartphone and other portable digital devices also contributes to growth.

Advertisement

Holographic AR in advertisement has two types: volumetric and online app. Snapchat and Instagram, for example, have developed AR filter-styled advertisements, featuring fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) & cosmetic products. Another type of advertisement is a “plug-in” advertisement during TV programming through manually adding computer generated 3D images to original scenes to promote products.

The market size of China’s holographic AR applied in ‘Advertisement’ recorded revenue of RMB 0.9 billion in 2016, and it is expected to increase at a CAGR of 71.8% from 2016 to 2020 and 78.9% from 2020 to 2025, reaching RMB143.9 billion ($20.9 million) by 2025. The growth is mostly driven by the prosperity of advertisement sector and the new retail business. As the advertisers are always pursuing the most cutting-edge visual effects to attract customers, the AR application in advertisement can be considered keeping evolving to be more diversified.

Volumetric display will take certain shares of offline advertisement display, as volumetric display has more astonishing effect compared to traditional, therefore can be vastly applied in retail store. Sponsored filters inside social network apps will rise due to the boom of short video apps in China. In the long run, holographic AR advertisement will be more interactive, and volumetric display will keep taking more share and come in larger sized projection. Also, advertisers’ interaction with custumers without head mounted devices and other electronics may be achieved.

III. Revenue from AR advertising services and AR entertainment will grow continuously

WIMI’s revenue includes ‘AR advertising services’ and ‘AR entertainment’. ‘AR advertising services’ use holographic materials which are embedded in advertisements on online media platforms or offline displays. Income is generated for WiMi Hologram as it delivers services according to specific terms of its contracts. The terms are usually based on the specific actions which display online, namely Cost Per Impression (‘CPM’) or Cost Per Action (‘CPA’), as well as the duration of the service of the contract displayed offline.

Revenue from ‘AR entertainment’ derives from a software development kit (‘SDK’), paid-channel services, software development, mobile game services and technology development. When a user completes a payment transaction via SDK, WIMI gains related income after deducting payments to the content provider.

As a matter of fact, the real label for WIMI Hologram should be user operation. The so-called user operation is that it is divided into two dimensions: absorbing new users and old users repurchase. From the IPO prospectus, it can be seen that WIMI shows high ability in both dimensions.

5G Network

Due to the change of bandwidth in 5G communication networks, high-end holographic applications have gradually developed into social media, communication, navigation, home application and other applications. Our plan is to provide holographic clouding platform services through 5G communication networks based on two core technologies: holographic AI facial recognition technology and holographic AI facial change technology.

The IPO prospectus demonstrates that the services of WiMi Hologram will be profoundly comingled with 5G. With the compliance of 5G with high rate and low delay, it makes the average transmission delay is about 6ms in terms of remote communication, data transmission as well as from system terminal to service server, which is much lower than 4G network transmission delay. It truly ensures the richness and diversity of holographic AR remote communication and data transmission without stuttering and low delay, and the richness and diversity of interaction in term of multi-terminal cooperation in different places. It makes the collaboration of port + cloud collaboration more efficient. 

Based on 5G AI face recognition technology and holographic AI DeepFake technology, the application of the enhanced mobile broadband (EMBB) and Internet of things (IOT) has made plenty of holographic services for WIMI to achieve with effective growth, such as holographic AR advertising business, holographic AR entertainment business, holographic interactive entertainment, holographic conference, holographic social contact, holographic communication, holographic home hologram and so on.