Chinese streaming video portal iQiyi yesterday launched its own in-house film production studio, iQiyi Pictures.
iQiyi was already working with a handful of major studios to produce nearly 30 TV shows.
The move to the big screen comes as many major video sites in China ramp up their efforts to offer original content to subscribers and ultimately drive revenues. This is done through partnerships and investments into existing studios and, as iQiyi has decided to do, produce content in-house. In October last year, rival video portal and smart TV maker LeTV acquired a Chinese production studio for US$260 million in a similar move. By some estimates, iQiyi overtook Youku this year as China’s most popular video streaming service. iResearch reports iQiyi users watched almost 1.2 billion hours of video in January, making up 22 percent of total market share in the country.
Chinese web giant Baidu owns both iQiyi and fellow video site PPS
Using Baidu’s financial services arm, iQiyi plans to let investors back movies, similar to the film investment service Alibaba launched a few weeks ago. Alibaba earlier this week signed a deal to get exclusive content from Mad Men and Orange is the New Black studio Lionsgate onto its set-top boxes.
Tech in Asia wrote a very good article on how: Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent are dominating Chinas movie industry in 3 years here.
The potential is huge. IQiyi Pictures will work with other companies to produce seven local movies and one Hollywood title within the next year, iQiyi said in a statement.
Source: Tech in Asia
Credits: Tech in Asia, JSW, IQiyi
