(Yicai Global) May 21 -- David Li, the founder and chairman of Chinese video-streaming platform Joyy, took control of Bigo in February after the overseas unit’s president, Jason Hu, was sidelined, Late Post reported.

All of Bigo’s managers report to Li and Hu is on forced vacation, the report said today, which cited as person familiar with the matter as saying the move was the Guangzhou-based company’s response to market changes.

Bigo, Joyy's main business after selling video services YY Live to Baidu and Huya to Tencent Holdings last year, is China’s second-highest earning non-game app overseas after ByteDance’s TikTok.

Bigo contributed 90 percent of Joyy’s revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020. Founded in 2014, Bigo has three main products: live-streaming app Bigo Live, short video app Likee and video conference app imo.

Li began to cut costs after taking over the business, according to the report. Likee laid off nearly 20 percent of its employees, mainly from the algorithm team, a person familiar with the matter said. The loss-making business imo is also being shaken up.

Bigo’s revenues jumped 88 percent to CNY3.39 billion (USD519.5 million) last year, mostly driven by an uptick in income from live-streaming. Joyy expects revenue of between USD590 million and USD605 million for the first quarter, a gain of 73 percent to 77 percent, excluding income from YY and Huya in the same period last year.

Bigo Live has been among the top 10 global apps for revenue almost every month since March last year, according to app stats compiler Sensor Tower.

Editor: Tom Litting