Tencent, Jack Ma, Huayi Bros in Chinese content venture


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Rebecca Hawkes

| 15 December 2015




Online video company Tencent, e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma and film studio Huayi Brothers Media Corp are joining forces to develop films and entertainment for China and abroad.



The three backers plan to invest HK$547 million (US$70.6 million) to create a media and cultural enterprise in Hong Kong, with ten live action films and three animated features initially slated to be developed with unnamed US production houses.

Ten Cent, Jack Ma and his e-commerce and video streaming giant Alibaba already control a combined share of over 11% in Huayi Brothers Sheznhen.

“In China, content is definitely king,” Peter Schloss, managing partner of CastleHill Partners LLC, a Beijing-based advisory and investment company, told Bloomberg. “Everyone’s trying to differentiate not through tech but through the content they have.”

China's online video market is expected to more than double to ¥90 billion in 2018 from an estimated ¥36 billion this year, according to IResearch