- Joined
- Sep 24, 2008
- Messages
- 2,144
- Points
- 0
Published October 19, 2010
Youku pips YouTube as China takes centrestage
Top online video provider is 'Hulu on YouTube scale': CEO
(BEIJING) Youku.com Inc CEO Victor Koo says he's tired of being asked whether his company, China's biggest online-video provider, is the nation's version of YouTube or Hulu. It's both and better, he says.
Higher quality: About 70% of Youku videos are professionally produced, and while music videos and short clips dominate US video sites, 60% of Youku content is longer
'We are in the midst of an arguably more interesting opportunity: Hulu on a YouTube scale,' Mr Koo, 44, said in an interview. 'The Internet TV opportunity in China is unique and also arguably more attractive than the rest of the world.'
Mr Koo is among dotcom executives who were gathering in Beijing yesterday and today to sell the idea that Chinese online services from Youku to Tencent Holdings Ltd's QQ are catching up with the world, and Western companies will soon turn to China for innovation.
Their edge in detecting trends: an Internet population of 420 million - more than the number of people in the US and Germany.
'The Internet's centre of gravity is shifting towards China,' said Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China in Beijing, a technology consultant. 'China has almost double the number of US Internet subscribers. That concentration matters.'
Xu Rongsheng, 63, agrees. The Institute of High Energy Physics researcher, credited by the government with setting up the nation's first website in 1994, said China has a chance to influence usage in the rest of the world.
'We cannot live without the Internet,' Mr Xu said in an interview. 'The Internet is like life.'
Some investors may already be ahead of the curve. Tencent and Baidu Inc, China's largest Internet companies, are larger than eBay Inc and Yahoo! Inc by market value. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's Alibaba.com unit is also among the 10 biggest Internet companies globally by market capitalisation.
While Google Inc and Yahoo have struggled to operate in China, where the government requires Web content to be censored, domestic companies such as Tencent have thrived.
Tencent expanded its QQ online-chat software to offer additional features that appeal to youths, helping it beat services from Skype Technologies SA and Microsoft Corp, according to Jake Li, an Internet analyst at Guotai Junan Securities Co. QQ boomed after Tencent allowed messages to be sent to offline users and allowed subscribers to send files and photos, he said.
QQ controlled 77 per cent of China's instant-messaging market last December, compared with 4.2 per cent for Microsoft's MSN, according to researcher Analysys International.
Taobao.com, China's biggest online-shopping site, overtook San Jose, California-based eBay within three years of its founding in 2003 by waiving commissions from transactions between its users. The approach by Taobao appealed more to China's cost-conscious Internet users, according to James Hawkins, managing director at DGM Asia, which buys advertising from Internet companies in China.
Taobao's parent, Alibaba, is expanding outside China. In August, the company announced its second US acquisition this year when it agreed to buy Auctiva.
While the number of so-called 'netizens' trumps those of any other country, Chinese Internet companies have yet to become household names, according to BDA's Mr Clark.
'Tencent is among the largest Internet companies in the world but most people outside of China haven't even heard of it,' said Mr Clark, who was to join Mr Koo as a speaker at the Stanford University-sponsored conference in Beijing, 'China 2.0: The Rise of a Digital Superpower'.
China also trails the US in revenue. Sales from online advertising reached 20.7 billion yuan (S$4 billion) last year, according to data from Beijing-based iResearch Inc. By comparison, ZenithOptimedia estimates US Internet advertisements in 2009 were valued at US$54.2 billion.
For Youku's Mr Koo, Chinese Internet companies are developing superior business models to their counterparts in the US and Europe.
Youku's business model combines the strengths of YouTube and Hulu, he said. About 70 per cent of the videos on Youku's site are professionally produced, and the rest are user-generated. Whereas US video sites are dominated by music videos and short clips, about 60 per cent of Youku's content is longer, such as movies, he said. YouTube, owned by Google, is inaccessible in China. -- Bloom-berg
Youku pips YouTube as China takes centrestage
Top online video provider is 'Hulu on YouTube scale': CEO
(BEIJING) Youku.com Inc CEO Victor Koo says he's tired of being asked whether his company, China's biggest online-video provider, is the nation's version of YouTube or Hulu. It's both and better, he says.
Higher quality: About 70% of Youku videos are professionally produced, and while music videos and short clips dominate US video sites, 60% of Youku content is longer
'We are in the midst of an arguably more interesting opportunity: Hulu on a YouTube scale,' Mr Koo, 44, said in an interview. 'The Internet TV opportunity in China is unique and also arguably more attractive than the rest of the world.'
Mr Koo is among dotcom executives who were gathering in Beijing yesterday and today to sell the idea that Chinese online services from Youku to Tencent Holdings Ltd's QQ are catching up with the world, and Western companies will soon turn to China for innovation.
Their edge in detecting trends: an Internet population of 420 million - more than the number of people in the US and Germany.
'The Internet's centre of gravity is shifting towards China,' said Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China in Beijing, a technology consultant. 'China has almost double the number of US Internet subscribers. That concentration matters.'
Xu Rongsheng, 63, agrees. The Institute of High Energy Physics researcher, credited by the government with setting up the nation's first website in 1994, said China has a chance to influence usage in the rest of the world.
'We cannot live without the Internet,' Mr Xu said in an interview. 'The Internet is like life.'
Some investors may already be ahead of the curve. Tencent and Baidu Inc, China's largest Internet companies, are larger than eBay Inc and Yahoo! Inc by market value. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's Alibaba.com unit is also among the 10 biggest Internet companies globally by market capitalisation.
While Google Inc and Yahoo have struggled to operate in China, where the government requires Web content to be censored, domestic companies such as Tencent have thrived.
Tencent expanded its QQ online-chat software to offer additional features that appeal to youths, helping it beat services from Skype Technologies SA and Microsoft Corp, according to Jake Li, an Internet analyst at Guotai Junan Securities Co. QQ boomed after Tencent allowed messages to be sent to offline users and allowed subscribers to send files and photos, he said.
QQ controlled 77 per cent of China's instant-messaging market last December, compared with 4.2 per cent for Microsoft's MSN, according to researcher Analysys International.
Taobao.com, China's biggest online-shopping site, overtook San Jose, California-based eBay within three years of its founding in 2003 by waiving commissions from transactions between its users. The approach by Taobao appealed more to China's cost-conscious Internet users, according to James Hawkins, managing director at DGM Asia, which buys advertising from Internet companies in China.
Taobao's parent, Alibaba, is expanding outside China. In August, the company announced its second US acquisition this year when it agreed to buy Auctiva.
While the number of so-called 'netizens' trumps those of any other country, Chinese Internet companies have yet to become household names, according to BDA's Mr Clark.
'Tencent is among the largest Internet companies in the world but most people outside of China haven't even heard of it,' said Mr Clark, who was to join Mr Koo as a speaker at the Stanford University-sponsored conference in Beijing, 'China 2.0: The Rise of a Digital Superpower'.
China also trails the US in revenue. Sales from online advertising reached 20.7 billion yuan (S$4 billion) last year, according to data from Beijing-based iResearch Inc. By comparison, ZenithOptimedia estimates US Internet advertisements in 2009 were valued at US$54.2 billion.
For Youku's Mr Koo, Chinese Internet companies are developing superior business models to their counterparts in the US and Europe.
Youku's business model combines the strengths of YouTube and Hulu, he said. About 70 per cent of the videos on Youku's site are professionally produced, and the rest are user-generated. Whereas US video sites are dominated by music videos and short clips, about 60 per cent of Youku's content is longer, such as movies, he said. YouTube, owned by Google, is inaccessible in China. -- Bloom-berg
