The popular Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba is set to launch an online video streaming service in China. The giant company is following the lead of US’s Netflix and HBO and the launching of this service is in China will not take long since the new service will be launch in about two months. That is what the company’s head of digital entertainment have divulge to the public last Sunday.
Tmall Box Office
The company’s very own Patrick Liu told the reporters in Shanghai that the new service will be called ‘TBO’, or Tmall Box Office, with content bought from China and other countries, as well as in-house productions.
There is an intenese competition going on with regards to the online video market in China. Since there are aready other companies that have invested huge amount of money to purchase a media content. These companies invested billion of dollars to media content so that they can capture more and more viewers thus and so it will make their company preeminent.
ALIBABA’S RIVALS
Tencent Holdings Ltd, Baidu Inc’s iQiyi, Sohu.com and Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp Beijing (LeTV) are just some of Alibaba’s direct competitors in this one particular venture.
“Our mission, the mission of all of Alibaba, is to redefine home entertainment,” said Liu. “Our goal is to become like HBO in the United States, to become like Netflix in the United States.”
Last year Alibaba bought a 16.5 percent share of Youku Tudou Inc, one of China’s biggest video streaming platforms. On how will the company incorporate the new service to Youku Tudou Inc the way to that path is not clear yet. But eventually it will get clearer and we will be able to understand what the company is up to when the service will officialy arrive.
As of now what is clear is that about 90 percent of TBO’s content will be paid for, either by monthly subscription or on a show-by-show basis, Liu said. The remaining 10 percent would be free. While on the other hand the Netflix is also planning an entry to China.