Harry Potter Movie Opening in China (Photo : Getty Images)
Besides producing domestic movies and distributing Hollywood films, Alibaba Pictures is also growing its movie ticketing business. It has established the Tao Piaopiao movie ticketing app and is considering buying also an online movie ticket site in India.
Tao Piaopiao
Nikkei reported that Alibaba Pictures subsidizes pre-release purchases of movie tickets through the Tao Piaopiao app which gives the company established by Jack Ma a two-week advance window to gauge local audience interest in specific movies and gain insight into Chinese consumer trends.
Tao Piaopiao is linked to the software used by cinema operations of Alibaba Pictures used by about 70 percent of Chinese theaters for ticket sales, screen bookings and other functions. In addition to the movie ticketing app, Alibaba Group also owns the Youku Tudou streaming sites, Alibaba Cloud Computing service and internet browser for cell phones UCWeb which provides Alibaba with big data on what Chinese consumers are purchasing and viewing in real time.
Now, Alibaba wants to replicate that strategy in another major movie market with large numbers – the Indian film market. Economic Times reported that Alibaba is planning to buy an online movie booking site in India after the Chinese giant acquired Paytm, a digital payment app.
TicketNew
He Xiaopeng, president of Alibaba mobile business, said that Alibaba is planning to buy sites similar to BookMyShow, although he did not identify the specific target of the company’s acquisition plan. But there is a recent media report that Alibaba Pictures is negotiating to purchase a 70 to 75 percent share of Orbgen Technologies, operator of a ticket-booking platform TicketNew for $35 million.
He said Alibaba is creating a strategic team to explore investment opportunities in India where mobile phone and internet users are growing fast while the global markets in those two sectors are slowing down.
