Grooms on billboards - a profitable business for the Chinese subway (7 photos)

The Chinese subway has opened its billboards for private ads, all because the subway desperately needs a new source of income. When the light boxes became available to ordinary Chinese, it all started…





Such an ad in the Guangzhou subway costs 999 yuan and hangs in 12 (!) light boxes for five days. The main condition is no product advertising, only your personal one.

Who was the first

One of the first to post his resume there was a simple man named Xiang Yaohan, tired of 27 months of unemployment. He said that in five days, 400 people clicked on his QR code to contact him, including 50 companies from different industries. Pretty good?



This is an advertisement for personal congratulations in the subway

But in fact, three months after this billboard, he still hasn’t found a job, although he was invited to various funny areas and just ordinary insurance or construction. Xiang dreams of working in a company developing AI (and he has experience), but perhaps it is all about him, and not about the lack of work...

But after Xiang's personal ad, it was like a dam burst in the subway. Other applicants poured in, marriage proposals, birthday wishes and gratitude to teachers (!), which is especially interesting. Moreover, at less crowded stations you can buy an ad for 380 yuan.

Personal and commercial





Do really successful people want to hang in the subway...

The point is that for commercial ads the price is twenty times higher. If you advertise yourself, then the maximum is 999 yuan for 12 light boxes, and for a firm or company - 48,000 yuan for the same 12 light boxes.

As the subway administration says: "We sell the satisfaction of emotional needs." That is, happiness from congratulations, gratitude, the desire to be noticed. And the low price attracts thousands of people, so there is a queue for the profitable boxes now.



Happy birthday greetings to a guy with a photo from fishing...

The biggest horror is when your mother places you on the box as a good groom...

In second place are congratulations, and especially - congratulations to a celebrity from some private fan. What if she sees it and is moved?



This is what the traditional groom market looks like in China, will it be replaced by subway banners?

Unprofitable subway

In fact, such a subway was driven by dire need. A recent analysis showed that after subsidies from the local government, only subway companies in five Chinese cities were profitable - Wuhan, Shenzhen, Jinan, Shanghai and Changzhou. As you can see, Guazhou is not on this list.



It's not hard to guess that the Chinese subway has a GIANT passenger flow

Guangzhou Metro has the highest ridership in China, with an average daily ridership of 8.57 million last year and ticket revenue of over 7 billion yuan.

However, despite being one of the cities with the highest fare revenue, Guangzhou Metro is not profitable. Its turnover is 14.12 billion yuan, but its net income to shareholders was only 20.93 million yuan. A small "exhaust" indeed.



The girl was sad, she congratulated herself

And in fact, grooms (who in China are simply desperately looking for brides) and congratulations at some point began to seem like a chance for the metro to escape from the pit of ever-declining revenue. Come on, loneliness, save the metro!