Alibaba consolidates it’s entertainment offerings with $1.5 billion to spend
Chinese tech company Alibaba are looking to bring all of it’s entertainment together into one place with a massive amount of funding to push new projects.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. have revealed their new push in entertainment media, consolidating all of their media products into Alibaba Digital Media and Entertainment Group. Included in their new entertainment subsidiary will be video site Youku Tudou, browser UCWeb, Alibaba Pictures Group Ltd. and all of the company’s gaming, literature, music and digital business units.
To kick off their new media sector Alibaba are putting over 10 billion yuan of investment into their new projects, roughly $1.5 billion. Whilst they haven’t revealed what new projects might be coming out of their entertainment companies soon, Alibaba have been edging themselves into the film industry with their own Alibaba Pictures Group.
Additionally Alibaba have begun expanding it’s media hooks globally with financial backing for big budget hollywood movies like the most recent Mission Impossible. Alibaba Pictures Group also recently bought a stake in the Steven Spielberg backed production company Amblin Partners to advise on production, marketing and distribution in China and worldwide.
Hopefully we’ll see some interesting music initiatives come out of their big funding as well. At the beginning of this year Alibaba bought a 4% stake in SM Entertainment, a South Korean music company. After that they launched a social music platform called Alibaba Planet that allowed music fans to follow their favourite artists, see what they’re up to, watch streams, buy merch and music and more.