Paid video streaming sites are expected to become popular in China. (Photo : Reuters)
It looks like the number of people wiling to pay for video streaming is increasing in numbers, and rapidly too! Some streaming video websites located in China are now looking to shift from free viewing to the paid streaming model, reported the 21st Century Business Herald.
Alibaba, an e-commerce giant in China, is set to launch paid videos for its streaming services. This service will be known as Tmall Box Office or TMO and will subsequently follow the format of HBO Go or Netflix in the United States, said Patrick Liu, Alibaba's Head of Digital Entertainment.
According to Liu, the service will offer a mixture of local and international programming as well as in-house products. There will be 10 percent of free content available, but the rest will require subscription or pay-per-view payments.
The industry expert added in a TV forum in Shanghai that pay-for-content models will be gradually adopted by some video-streaming website operators.
It is projected that 2016 will witness some domestically produced TV dramas to be the first to go online.
China has an estimated 433 million online video users in 2014, and that is 66.7 percent of the total number of its Internet users.
Several video streaming websites stated that paying streaming subscribers currently account for less than 10 percent of the total number of Internet users. There is good reason for video streaming service providers to be excited about the future of the paid video subscription market as the number of paying subscribers are growing at rapid speed.
There are presently two types of payment options available to subscribers: pay-per-view or monthly/quarterly/yearly subscription fees. Reports say that some video websites are looking into ways to provide more diversified payment models.
2013 showed that online video platforms placed more money in creating or acquiring video content alone. This year, online video platforms are expected to invest as much as 2 billion yuan ($322 million) in the same category.
