Revenue from Alibaba’s Digital media and entertainment business in the quarter ended December 31st, 2017 reached the RMB 5,413 million ($832 million). The figure means an increase of a 33% compared to RMB 4,063 million in the same quarter of 2016.
The growth was primarily due to a push up in revenue from mobile value-added services provided by UCWeb, such as news feeds and mobile search, and the rise in subscription revenue from Youku Tudou.
During the quarter, Youku video’s daily average subscribers more than doubled year-on-year, driven by
several original drama series and shows that became popular hits with users, such as “The Advisors Alliance 2,” “Day and Night,” “Gong Shou Dao” and “Oh My General.”
The value of original content is reflected through growing subscriber base as well as increasing mindshare among users.
Youku plans to continue investing and executing on a strategy of shifting its content mix toward original content.
During the quarter, Netflix signed an agreement to distribute “Day and Night,” a 32-episode detective thriller developed by Youku, to Netflix audiences around the world.
Alibaba sourced in 4thQ 2017 a 7% of its total revenues from Digital media and entertainment against the 8% in 2016.
Image over the headline.- Youku and Tudou logos.
