Alibaba may spin off its streaming services into a separate company – Kommersant

Alibaba Group Holding management has begun discussing the future of its streaming services Youku and Tudou. Bloomberg with reference to its own sources in the company.

One of the options under consideration is the spin-off of services into a separate company with its subsequent listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The other is bringing both services under the control of Alibaba Pictures Group, a Hong Kong-listed company that produces and produces films, promotes entertainment content, and sells movie tickets.

Youku and Tudou were originally rival services that merged into one company in 2012 in a $1 billion deal. Alibaba bought the services in 2016 for $5.1 billion. Both are among the largest in China in terms of audience and compete with from Baidu and Tencent. As part of this struggle, Alibaba has poured billions of yuan into streaming to develop original content, but the streaming continues to suffer losses for Alibaba.

The revision of the strategic development of services takes place as part of the restructuring of Alibaba Group, declared in March. The holding will be divided into six independent business groups, each of which must hold its own initial public offering in the future at the “most opportune” moment for this.

Recently, Alibaba Group also announced on leadership changes: Daniel Zhang, who led the company for eight years, will step down on September 10 as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors. The post of CEO after his departure will be taken by Eddie Wu, who now leads the main divisions of Taobao and Tmall holding. Joseph Tsai, who is now Executive Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alibaba Group, will become Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Kirill Sarkhanyants