Jack Ma founded Alibaba is looking to acquire an online movie booking site to up its game in India’s retail entertainment business.
The Chinese e-commerce major had earlier invested in digital payment app PayTm. “Within the group, there is already a momentum like the PayTm investment,” He Xiaopeng, president of mobile business at Alibaba, told ET on Wednesday when asked about the company’s acquisition moves in India. “We are also going to have some investment in online movie tickets booking sites.”
Xiaopeng said the acquisition target can be sites similar to BookMyShow though he did not specify if the company was in talks with any site for a deal.
A recent media report had said that Alibaba Pictures, the movie, and TV content business controlled by the e-commerce firm, was in negotiations to buy 70-75% stake in Orbgen Technologies for about $35 million. Orbgen operates ticket-booking platform TicketNew.
Xiaopeng said Alibaba is creating a strategic team to explore investment opportunities in India. “We are forming a strategic group to look at the investment strategy here and take it as a long-term goal for considering more investments.”
In 2014, Alibaba had acquired Chinese mobile browser firm UCWeb, which was co-founded by Xiaopeng.
Alibaba views Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm’s foray into telecom as a good opportunity for the company. “It (Jio’s low data tariff) is definitely an opportunity for us and the entire industry. Content consumption is surging vastly and is good for our operations. It is good for content portfolio and ecosystem, and is also an opportunity for the digital payments segment,” Xiaopeng said.
Alibaba’s mobile business has identified short videos as the next big thing as entertainment content surges. Mark Zuckerberg-driven Facebook has also shown interest in short videos.
Xiaopeng said Facebook cares less about content and more about communication. “We talk more about content generation, organisation, and commercialisation. In future, we will focus on content creators and help them make better content with commercialisation. This will be our key competitive strength,” he said.
On Wednesday, UCWeb said it will invest Rs 200 crore in India.
