Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) on Friday agreed to buy video service Youku Tudou Inc (優酷土豆) in a deal said to be valued at US$4.8 billion, as billionaire Jack Ma (馬雲) seeks to stream more content to Chinese Internet users through control of the YouTube-like Web site.
Alibaba, China’s biggest online shopping company, raised its offer to US$27.60 per share in cash from US$26.60 last month. The new price is 35 percent greater than Youku’s stock price the day before the initial bid was disclosed.
Youku’s board has approved the merger agreement, Alibaba, which already owned a minority stake in the company, said in a statement.
Full ownership of Youku would help Ma deliver US films and drama series to more than a third of China’s population as Alibaba competes with Baidu Inc (百度) and Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) for the attention of Internet users.
“The move into digital media makes a lot of sense,” Stamford, Connecticut-based MKM Partners analyst Rob Sanderson said. “The rise of Internet video is really undeniable around the world, so I think it’s a strategy that could produce quite a bit of leverage given the size of their communities.”
Youku and Tencent’s video sites both had about 286 million unique visitors in August, yet viewers spent more time watching content on Youku, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Baidu’s IQiyi had 273 million visitors.
More than 461 million people in China consumed video online as of June, with 354 million users — more than the entire population of the US — accessing from smartphones, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
Alibaba’s shares fell 2.1 percent to US$83.61 at the close in New York, reversing earlier gains after CNBC reported that Kynikos Associates LP founder Jim Chanos said investors should be bearish on the stock and recommended it as a short-sale trade. Youku shares jumped by 7.3 percent to US$26.14.
Victor Koo (古永鏘) is to remain as chairman and chief executive officer of Youku, which has never posted a profit since its 2010 initial public offering, and is zeroing in on US studios for programming.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last