Jack Ma, Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, speaks at the WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach, California October 27, 2014.
IN PHOTO: Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is planning to invest US$200 million in Snapchat, a popular mobile application for sending photos that disappear later on. The investment would raise Snapchat’s valuation to $15 billion. IN PHOTO: Jack Ma, Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, speaks at the WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach, California October 27, 2014. Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

Alibaba announced on June 14 that it will launch an online video streaming service in China in the next two months and the company aims to surpass popular video streaming services like Netflix and HBO, according to reports.

According to a report on Reuters, the service has been named ‘Tmall Box Office (TBO)’ and the content will be procured from China and other countries, as well as in-house productions. The announcement to launch TBO comes at a time when the online video market in China has got very competitive with companies investing huge amount to purchase media content to lure a large chunk of viewers, reports Reuters.

"Our mission, the mission of all of Alibaba, is to redefine home entertainment," the Reuters report quoted Patrick Liu, President of Alibaba's Digital Entertainment Group, as saying. "Our goal is to become like HBO in the U.S., to become like Netflix in the U.S."

TBO will diversify the company’s product offerings with premium on-demand video content for which customers will pay to access video content and this step would plump up company’s $4.2 billion revenue, which is higher than $1.57 billion revenue garnered by Netflix. Alibaba owns a majority stake in Chinavision, a film production company besides operating portals to games and music, reports CNET.

According to a report on The Verge, Alibaba is a more profitable online marketplace than Amazon and Alibaba’s current move is quite similar to Amazon’s plans to make Amazon Prime Instant a popular video streaming service.

The Reuters report quoted Liu saying, about 90 percent of content on TBO will be paid for either by monthly subscription or on a show-by-show basis and the rest 10 percent will be available for free.

Netflix has been trying to launch its services in various countries and it also has plans to enter the Chinese market, reports The Verge. Alibaba’s new video streaming service will compete with Tencent, Baidu’s Sohu.com and Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp Beijing, reports Deadline.

(For feedback/comments, mail the writer at pragyan.ibtimes@gmail.com)

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