Alibaba’s Ma seeks Hollywood partners in content push

Billionaire Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Billionaire Jack Ma said Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is seeking partners in Hollywood as China’s biggest e-commerce operator wants to acquire more content for smartphones and tablet computers.
Ma is visiting Hollywood to learn about movie studios because China’s film industry needs great cultural products, he told the WSJDLive conference in Laguna Beach, California, yesterday. The company has been inspired by Silicon Valley and believes it’s time to invest in the technology hub, he said.
Alibaba, which completed the largest initial public offering last month, is hunting for movies and television shows as it expands its entertainment content. Ma and a team of Alibaba executives are meeting with representatives from some of the biggest Hollywood studios to seek deals for the rights to distribute U.S. shows at home, or invest in the companies, people familiar with the matter have said.
“I come here to learn, I want to come here looking for partners,” he said. “We worry about people with deep pockets but shallow minds, so movies are the best way to change Chinese young people’s behavior.”
The nation will be the world’s largest movie market as the middle class expands to 200 million people, Ma said.
“They need great culture products,” he said.
Alibaba released its first set-top box in collaboration with Wasu Media Holding Co. in September 2013. A month later, it announced another box under the Tmall brand, the name of one of Alibaba’s biggest e-commerce platforms.
Users of Alibaba’s set-top boxes can watch TV channels and high-definition movies, shop online and play games. Alibaba buys rights from studios that control films and TV content to show them online for a fee, often by territory.
Ma also said the company is interested in coming together with Apple’s new Apple Pay service.
Alibaba is building its own online payment system Alipay globally as it tries to process more digital sales for small businesses.
Alibaba plans to expand in Europe, the U.S. and Asia, Ma said during the IPO road show in Hong Kong. Ma, a 50-year-old former school teacher, is China’s richest person with a net worth of $27.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Tim Higgins and Lulu Yilun Chen, Bloomberg

Alibaba rebrands travel unit as Alitrip in mobile push

Alibaba will rebrand its travel unit as Alitrip, establishing the marketplace as an independent unit to tap mobile customers in China’s growing tourism-related industries.
Alitrip, formerly known as Taobao Travel, has more than 10,000 merchants for airlines, hotels and package tours, Hangzhou, China-based Alibaba said in press release yesterday.
Alibaba, which last month completed a record USD25 billion initial public offering in the U.S., started its travel business in 2010 as a competitor to online travel service Ctrip.com International Ltd. Since then Alibaba has built the service through acquisitions and investments as China’s travel operators benefit from rising incomes and a growing middle class, which boosts demand for packaged tours.
“This independent online travel platform is a logical extension of Alibaba Group’s strategy,” said Li Shaohua, general manager of Alitrip.
Alitrip will focus on mobile application services, allowing users to cancel previous bookings, reserve taxis, set up flight seat preferences. Alitrip will make mobile promotions after this year’s Nov. 11 sales promotion, including offering flight tickets for just one yuan, the company said.