Youku Tudou Inc. (formerly Youku Inc.),
doing business as Youku (), is a
video hosting service based in
Beijing
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Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
. It operates as a subsidiary of
Alibaba Group Holding Limited.
Youku has its headquarters in the Sinosteel Plaza in
Haidian District, Beijing.
On 12 March 2012, Youku reached an agreement to merger with
Tudou in a stock-for-stock transaction, the new entity being named Youku Tudou Inc. In 2014, it had more than 500 million
monthly active users
Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...
, with 800 million daily video views.
Youku is one of China's top online video and streaming service platforms, along with
iQiyi,
Sohu,
LeTV,
Tencent Video,
PPTV,
56.com
56.com is one of the largest video sharing websites in China where users can upload, view, and share video clips.
A fully owned subsidiary of Sohu, the company is headquartered in Tianhe District, Guangzhou, Guangdong.
The domain ''56.com'' att ...
and
Funshion. However, Youku's domination in the Chinese market was toppled by its competitor Baidu's
iQiyi in 2015.
History
Youku was founded by
Victor Koo (Gu Yongqiang), former
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
of Chinese Internet portal
Sohu. Initial funding for the site came from 1Verge, a fund raised by him. A beta version of the site was launched with limited geographic reach in June 2003, and the website was formally launched in December 2003. In 2007, the company received $25 million in funding from venture capitalists. In December 2009, the company announced that it had raised a total of $110 million in private equity funding. Major investors include
Brookside (Bain) Capital,
Sutter Hill Ventures,
Maverick Capital
Maverick Capital is an American hedge fund firm. It was founded by Lee Ainslie in 1993, who was a "Tiger Cub" under Julian Robertson at Tiger Management
Tiger Management Corp., also known as "The Tiger Fund", is an American hedge fund and fa ...
, and Chengwei Ventures.
The company initially emphasized user-generated content but has since shifted its focus to professionally produced videos licensed from over 1,500 content partners.
As of January 2010, Youku.com was ranked #1 in the Chinese Internet video sector according to Internet metrics provider CR-Nielsen, (keeping in mind that YouTube is banned in China). In 2008, Youku partnered with
Myspace in China. Later that year, Youku became the sole online video provider embedded in the
China Edition of
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current an ...
.
In January 2010, Youku and competitor
Tudou announced the creation of a video broadcasting exchange network, under which Youku and Tudou will cross-license professionally produced video content.
Youku recorded gross revenues of 200 million RMB in 2009.
On 8 December 2010, Youku was listed at the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its liste ...
for its first time. The stock closed at $33.44 on its first day of trading giving the company a market capitalization of approximately $3.3 billion. For the first 9 months of 2010 Youku reported revenue of $35.1 million and recorded a loss of $25 million during this period. YouKu.com seems to have no relation to the Chinese domain youku.cn.
Victor Koo was once an employee of Bain & Company, one of the most prominent management consulting firms in the world.
In December 2018, the company announced a layoff of the president of the unit Yang Weidong due to his assistance to the police in investigation about the case of seeking economic benefits.
The mobile app of Youku was banned in India (along with other Chinese apps) on 2 September 2020 by the government, the move came amid the
2020 China-India skirmish.
Merger
On 12 March 2012, Youku and
Tudou two of the biggest online video companies in China announced plans to merge,
creating one of
China's
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones ...
biggest video sites.
Prior to the announcement of the merger, Youku was the #11 website in China, and Tudou was #14.
The company's name was changed to Youku Tudou Inc. The chairman of the board is
Victor Koo, the founder of Youku. The company had a stock listed on the NYSE, YOKU before being acquired by
Alibaba Group on 6 November 2015. In December 2016 it reported it had 30 million subscribers.
See also
*
56.com
56.com is one of the largest video sharing websites in China where users can upload, view, and share video clips.
A fully owned subsidiary of Sohu, the company is headquartered in Tianhe District, Guangzhou, Guangdong.
The domain ''56.com'' att ...
*
Tencent Video
*
Tudou
*
iQiyi
References
Further reading
Youku Informationat
Business Week
''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
External links
*
*
Corporate information
{{Chinese Internet video website
2006 establishments in China
Chinese brands
Companies based in Beijing
Chinese entertainment websites
Haidian District
Internet properties established in 2006
Chinese companies established in 2006
Online companies of China
Alibaba Group
Internet censorship in India