Alibaba grows entertainment portfolio with stake in Chinese online video platform Bilibili
Alibaba has purchased an 8% stake in Chinese online video platform Bilibili as China’s online video market continues to expand.
Alibaba has bought a stake in Chinese online video platform Bilibili.
The investment comes nearly 12 months after video streaming site was listed on the US stock exchange.
Bilibili is one of China’s top video and entertainment platforms and boasts 92 million monthly active users. The site, which is popular with China’s post 90s generation, features anime, comics and gaming content.
The investment follows comes hot on the heels of a business collaboration between Alibaba’s Taobao and Bilibili in December last year to collaborate on content-driven e-commerce activity.
The deal aimed to help content creators on Bilibili promote and merchandise content on Taobao’s marketplace.
The investment sees Alibaba join rival Tencent, which is the second-largest shareholder in Bilibili. Both Alibaba and Tencent are competing heavily for dominance in China’s fiercely competitive online video market.
According to figures from June last year, China’s online video market is dominated by Tencent Video with 46% market share, Baidu's iQiyi holds 43.6% and Alibaba’s Youku has 30.3%, Bilibili trails the three giants with 7.5% share.
The market shows no signs of slowing down with a recent report predicting the number of paid memberships on China’s online video platforms will pass 300m this year, up from 230m in 2018.
Bilibili’s stocks rose 4% following news of the investment.