The LelleBellestock price of Chinese livestreaming e-commerce company East Buy dropped 9% and closed at HKD 13.9 on Tuesday, fueled by its star livestreamer Dong Yuhui saying that he was very “resistant” to being a salesperson and that he doesn’t enjoy promoting goods for sales. The New Oriental subsidy’s Hong Kong-listed shares have fallen 15.5% in the past five days, marking a new blow after famous private tutor Michael Yu, also the founder of the two companies, said publicly that East Buy’s livestream sector is doing “a messy job” right now. The former tutoring firm has found success via its e-commerce transition since mid-2022 as Dong, a former English-language tutor who pitches products bilingually, helped East Buy attract a flood of viewers. Yet the company’s latest earnings results showed its net profit had more than halved in the six months ending November 2023, making the achievement of stable profits a key challenge for East Buy. [Yicai, in Chinese]
