English

By Tang Guhan

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba is exerting more influence on its film arm Alibaba Pictures by buying one billion shares for 1.25 billion HK dollars (160 million U.S. dollars), as announced by the company on Monday. Alibaba's holdings on the company will increase from 49 percent to 50.92 percent after the deal.

Alibaba Pictures operates in the business of film distribution and content making among others. Its recent hits Dying To Survive and Hello Mr. Billionaire have earned 3.07 billion yuan (540 million U.S. dollars) and 2.5 billion yuan (360 million U.S. dollars) respectively.

The company is slated to roll out up to 20 more movies within the next five years.

This deal is going to strengthen the links between Alibaba Pictures with Alibaba's other media groups like its online streaming platform Youku and ticket booking platform Daimai.cn, the company said.

"Leveraged by Alibaba's Big Data and e-commerce advantages, we will continue making efforts in the digital upgrading of the Chinese film industry and offer high-quality services for our customers," said Fan Luyuan, CEO of Alibaba Pictures.

The company's revenue amounted to 1.532 billion yuan (220 million U.S. dollars) between  March 2018 and September 2018, as shown in the earnings report, up 29.4 percent year on year.

The share price for Alibaba Pictures surged by 35 percent during this year amid the gloomy film stocks prices in general.

And the share price for Alibaba Pictures soared by 8 percent after the news on Monday.