Alibaba acquired 8.8% stake in Enlight Media, a leading film and TV company in China. The stockholding of the e-commerce giant has a value of RMB2.4 billion ($383 million) based on its regulatory filing in China.
The filing indicated that Ali Venture Capital, the financial unit of Alibaba Group received 99 million of newly issued shares from Enlight Media. The price of each share was RMB 24.22. The e-commerce giant acquired its stake through a private placement deal.
Alibaba aggressively expands in entertainment & media
Alibaba Group Holding has been aggressively expanding its business in the entertainment and media industry. Last January, the e-commerce giant acquired a majority stake in AdChina, a digital marketing platform based in Shanghai. The acquisition increased its footprint in the digital advertising space.
Alibaba Group Holding combined AdChina with Alimama, its online and mobile advertising platform. The businesses are working together to provide marketing services to online media outlets, third-party service providers and businesses.
Last year, the e-commerce giant established Alibaba Pictures in Hong Kong after acquiring a majority stake in ChinaVision Media Group Limited. Chinese director Alibaba Pictures is producing its first movies. Chinese director, Wong Kar-wai is directing the movie.
In 2014, Alibaba Group Holding established film company in Hong Kong called Alibaba Pictures Group by acquiring a majority stake of ChinaVision Media Group Limited. Wong Kar-wai, a filmmaker in Hong Kong is producing and directing Alibaba Pictures’ first movie entitled Bai Du Ren (The Ferry Man), a romantic drama based on a short story written by Zhang Jiajia. TV actor Tony Leung will star in the movie.
Alibaba co-founders, Jack Ma and Simon Xie also acquired 20% stake in Wasu Media for $1.05 billion on April last year. The e-commerce giant also purchased 18.5% in Youku Tudou, a Chinese online video firm for $1.22 billion.
Alibaba opens first U.S. cloud data center
Yesterday, Alibaba Group Holding announced the opening of its first cloud data center in the United States. Its data center is located in Silicon Valley and marks the expansion of the e-commerce giant outside China.
Aliyun, the cloud-computing subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding is the largest public cloud services provider in China with more than 1.4 million customers.
China’s cloud-computing market “is certainly growing, but if you look at the overall cloud market, China represents 5 percent of the (global) public budget. So there is lots of room for us to grow outside of China, we just need to grow in a careful way,” said Sicheng Yu, vice president and head of its international business of Aliyun.
