Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) announced the expansion of its entertainment business by acquiring online ticketing platform Damai.cn.
Newest news from NASDAQ indicates that one of the company’s competitors within the Specialty Retail, Other space, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), is projected to report its earnings results on April 25, 2017. AWS which promotes its blog coverage on BABA will commence a research report on eBay after the release of its next earnings results.
The acquisition
Damai, a Beijing, China based company is an ecommerce platform that provides tickets to concerts, sporting events, live theatre, movies, and others. Its presence is felt across 330 cities worldwide with 46 branches. It has offered ticket booking services to more than 1.8 million concerts and sports events.
Alibaba had previously invested in Damai in 2014 by acquiring 32 percent stakes in the company. With the current acquisition, Alibaba has fully acquired complete 100 percent stake in Damai. However, the financial terms and other details of the new acquisition were not revealed by both companies.
The. Alibaba has not clarify whether the merger with Damai will be combined with Tao Piao Piao or any other business Pictures it owns on its online ticketing platform. This move could save Alibaba more in terms of joint synergies.
Yu Yongfu, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Pictures Group and Head of Alibaba’s Digital Entertainment Division said, “Damai.cn will be a powerful platform to distribute our media content as well as expand our user reach and engagement. There will be extensive collaboration opportunities with our other entertainment assets including Alibaba Music, Alibaba Pictures and Youku.”
Alibaba has previously used mergers and acquisition as their business strategy for expansion. For instance, the Company has invested not only in China and US but also in markets like India, Malaysia, Australia, among others.
With the new acquisition of Damai, it is venturing outside of its online retail business into the entertainment business. The Alibaba’s new entertainment business vertical is already present in the mobile Internet browsing, video, and music streaming.
Alibaba plans to spread out its entertainment business to cover the fan economy, film production and distribution. It commenced with acquisition of online ticketing in the domestic market. This practice might help the company to cover other regions in the future.
