Tag Archives: Youku Tudou

Youku Tudou to Add 33 U.S. TV Shows By Year's End

By Kevin Chen, The Motley Fool

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Youku Tudou  will add 33 popular American TV dramas and variety shows to its international library by the end of 2013.

With shows from ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CW, and WB, Youku Tudou is looking to continue to grow its American TV content as Chinese viewership has seen explosive growth over the past years. From 2011 to 2012 alone, Youku Tudou has seen about a 400% increase in the content category. Each episode averages as many as 2.5 million people.

Included in the deal are such TV shows as Vampire Diaries,” “Modern Family,” and “2 Broke Girls.” These new shows join American Idol, Scandal, and the more than 20 hit TV shows Youku Tudou has imported since 2010. Youku Tudou has chosen these TV shows according to in-house content metrics and analysis. 

Youku Tudou‘s foreign TV expansion comes after the company struck an exclusive partnership with Hong Kong Television Broadcasts Limited (“TVB“). Announced last week, the deal sets the stage for Youku.com and Tudou.com to host more than 2,500 hours of popular TVB content each year for the next two years.

The article Youku Tudou to Add 33 U.S. TV Shows By Year’s End originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Kevin Chen has no position in any stocks mentioned, and neither does The Motley Fool. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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3 Reasons Why the Market Doesn't Really Care About The Youku-TVB Deal

By Kevin Chen, The Motley Fool

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Shares of Youku Tudou  rose over 3% last Wednesday after announcing an exclusive partnership with Hong Kong Television Broadcast. Despite the great terms Youku has received under this deal, the company’s stock is still down 4% year to date. Why?

Even as the user-generated online video company moves towards original online programming that has helped Netflix shares and Google‘s YouTube, Youku Tudou still faces an increasingly competitive market. Fool contributor Kevin Chen tells us why investors need to watch out for Baidu‘s  iQiyi, Sohu  TV, and Youku’s merger last year with Tudou.

If Youku Tudou still seems like a gamble at this point, then you might want to turn to one of the best buys in tech today: Baidu. In our brand-new premium report, The Motley Fool breaks down the dominant Chinese search provider’s strengths and weaknesses, and why Baidu will be able to capitalize on its growth opportunities for some time to come. Just click here to access it now.

var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; FoolAnalyticsData.push({ eventType: “TickerReportPitch”, contentByline: “Kevin Chen“, contentId: “cms.25827”, contentTickers: “NASDAQ:NFLX, NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:BIDU, NYSE:YOKU, NASDAQ:SOHU”, contentTitle: “3 Reasons Why the Market Doesn’t Really Care About The Youku-TVB Deal”, hasVideo: “True”, pitchId: “23”, pitchTickers: “NASDAQ:BIDU”, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Can This Company Profit as the "YouTube of China"?

By Kevin Chen, The Motley Fool

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After the Hong Kong Televsion Broadcast Limited deal on Tuesday, fellow Fool Rick Munarriz made compelling points for Youku Tudou to become the “Netflix of China” with a subscription-based model.

However, I’m not so sure the online video giant should abandon its YouTube-ish roots. It would put Youku Tudou in more direct competition with such online video giants as Baidu’s iQiyi and Sohu TV, both of which have carved out strengths in distributing professional content.

Looking at long-term demographic trends in China, Youku Tudou‘s continued focus on user-generated videos — similar to Google’s Youtube — may best lead the way for long-term profits and shareholder returns.

Why competition could crush Youku Tudou’s hopes
Youku Tudou displayed serious hopes to become a purveyor of all kinds of online video with its Hong Kong TVB deal. Not only will it receive 2,500 hours of exclusive content per year (including current and past TV shows), but the deal also opens the way for co-producing original content.  

Given the company’s position in the online video market, it’s not hard to see why Youku Tudou made the deal and thinks it can make the transition.

Video Site

Hours Watched

Parent Company

1. Youku.com

698M

Youku

2. iQiyi.com

569M

Baidu

3. V.QQ.com

474M

Tencent

4. TV.Sohu.com

406M

Sohu

5. Tudou.com

291M

Youku

Source: We Are Social. For Aug. 2012. Tencent is not a U.S.-listed stock.

Youku Tudou outpaces the competition in number of hours watched. Youku.com alone attracted 129 million more hours watched than its nearest competitor, iQiyi.com. And once you combine Youku.com and Tudou.com together (the companies merged in 2012), you’ll see that they trounce the competition.

So while Youku Tudou has the lead, it believes that it can continue to dictate its position in the market, whether that be a purely user-generated video website or something more.

However, I think that the company is underplaying the first-mover advantage that its competitors have already carved out in their online video niches.

Baidu acquired iQiyi.com last year because of its leadership in providing full-length movies and TV shows. In the latest earnings release, Baidu announced that it will continue to step up its “investments and [increase] sales and marketing efforts to ensure [iQiyi] captures the huge opportunities ahead.” iQiyi.com is the No. 2 most watched video site for a reason, and could be for some time. 

Meanwhile, TV.Sohu.com has the variety show and, especially, the American TV audience in China locked down. Specifically, Sohu’s American TV views jumped 136% from the third to the fourth quarter — thanks in part to popular shows such as “Breaking Bad” and “Modern Family.” And given that American TV viewers are often of higher educational and wealthier backgrounds, it’s likely that Sohu will continue to dig out its niche to draw in higher-end advertisers. 

So, in a sense, Youku Tudou has few places to go. Of course, it shouldn’t …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Youku Tudou Strikes Exclusive 2-Year Content Deal With Hong Kong's TVB

By Kevin Chen, The Motley Fool

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Youku Tudou has struck an exclusive partnership with Hong Kong Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) to bring more than 2,500 hours of TVB‘s dramas and old classics each year to Youku Tudou‘s websites.

Announced at a conference during the 37th Hong Kong International Film Festival, the two-year deal will bring almost all new and classic TVB titles to Youku Tudou. The deal will also make TVB‘s content exclusively available to Youku Tudou on iPads, iPhones, and other mobile devices. 

The deal also makes way for co-producing original content and resource sharing agreements. One possibility is co-promoting content by TVB-affiliated celebrities, related performances, and other events. 

This partnership represents Youku Tudou‘s latest move in bringing original overseas film and television content to its sites. Three months ago, Youku Tudou became the exclusive source for AMC  content in China. Other recent partners include the BBC, MBC (Korean Munhwa Broadcasting Corp.), and other major U.S. TV content right holders.

Youku Tudou‘s press release says:

Youku Tudou has both the largest copyrighted video repository and user base. TVB has a spotless reputation and history throughout the Chinese-speaking world,” said Youku Tudou President Dele Liu. This strategic and cooperative partnership combines the strength of Youku Tudou‘s Internet platform and apps with TVB‘s wonderful repertoire of shows. It’s an invaluable combination that will help Youku Tudou achieve its goal of being the go-to source for high-quality Internet television in China.

The article Youku Tudou Strikes Exclusive 2-Year Content Deal With Hong Kong’s TVB originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Kevin Chen has no position in any stocks mentioned, and neither does The Motley Fool. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Warning: Buy While You Still Have the Chance

By Kevin Chen, The Motley Fool

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By now, mobile troubles, the Qihoo threat, and perhaps the Youku Tudou  threat may put you off from buying Baidu . However, you needn’t worry about such complexities. That’s how Mr. Market makes such stupid, short-term decisions. All you need to invest confidently in Baidu is simple reason. 

Baidu is the cheapest it’s been in five years
Here’s perhaps the biggest reason it’s the right time to buy Baidu:

Source: YCharts. Youku Tudou doesn’t show because of its negative P/E. 

Now, the P/E ratio isn’t the perfect metric to measure value — no metric is — so let’s not get caught up in the details. What I like to use the P/E for, however, is as a measure of what the market expects of Baidu.

Given that the company’s P/E of 18 is lower than that of tertiary Chinese search players such as Google  and Sohu — even as Baidu dominates with 70% market share — it’s clear that Baidu has fallen out of favor with manic-depressive Mr. Market.

So if you’ve had Baidu on your watchlist, and if you’ve developed a sound, simple thesis for investing in Baidu, stop reading this article. What are you waiting for?

Understandably, you’re wary. I mean, Baidu trades at a 52-week low of $85, and the company could go lower.

Three reasons Baidu could go lower
(Note: These are the three biggest problems for Baidu as I see them. I’ve borrowed heavily from fellow Fools John Reeves and Pamela Peerce-Landers’ phenomenal slideshow on the Bull vs. Bear Case for Baidu.)

The first and biggest reason Mr. Market thinks so little of Baidu is that the economics of mobile search aren’t great. Understandably, mobile advertising isn’t as lucrative as desktop search, where Baidu can run bigger ads, as well as more ads per page (up to eight, versus two on mobile, to be exact), and thus charge more per ad. Moreover, Baidu already sees 39% of its traffic, but gets only 2% of its revenue, from mobile devices. And as mobile usage is set to grow at 100% per year, Credit Suisse notes that PC Internet will see only single-digit growth.

Second, Mr. Market thinks Qihoo is a real threat to Baidu. Just look at its outrageous P/E of 76! Of course, those expectations are, in many ways, well deserved. Since launching a search engine last summer, the antivirus maker has shot its way up to become China’s No. 2 provider in search; it now commands 12% of the search market. Furthermore, Qihoo has made key partnerships with Google to bolster its ad platform. Meanwhile, there are rumors that Qihoo may soon partner with Sohu’s search engine, Sogou.com; together, they would comprise 20% of the search market. Suffice it to say the market thinks that Qihoo is the snowball that may soon become an avalanche — taking down Baidu with it.

Third, Mr. Market is scared of Baidu’s other advertising competitors — namely, Youku Tudou, the “YouTube …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

China's Renren Is No Facebook

By Rick Munarriz, Munarriz, The Motley Fool

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There’s apparently more than a few differences between social networking in China and how it’s playing out in the rest of the world.

Shares of Renren opened 4% lower this morning — turning higher later in the day — after capping off a strong quarter with a weak near-term outlook.

Revenue rose 49% to $48.8 million during the fourth quarter for China‘s leading social networking website operator. Renren’s adjusted deficit checked in at $0.06 a share. Analysts were braced for a loss of $0.07 a share on just $46.4 million in revenue.

However, digging deeper into the performance shows how different Renren is from Facebook .

It’s not just that Facebook is profitable and Renren is not. As mobile usage grows for both companies — mobile is accounting for two-thirds of Renren’s connections these days — Facebook hasn’t had a problem monetizing the platform on the smaller devices. Renren has struggled, and instead of traditional brand advertising, the Chinese speedster is turning to gaming and social e-commerce to cash in on the mobility trend. The end result is pretty shocking. Brand advertising revenue — something that’s up sharply at Facebook — actually declined 17% at Renren over the past year.

Renren’s revenue was up sharply largely on a 117% spike in online game revenue. Gaming now accounts for more than half of Renren’s revenue, and that’s a sharp contrast to Facebook where casual games are becoming less of a factor as it beefs up its platform for marketers.

There’s a price to be paid when you’re a social networking site diversifying your revenue streams away from your high-margin roots. Cost of revenue far outpaced revenue growth itself — 84% vs. 49% — as Renren invests in its Groupon-like Nuomi social commerce platform and its 56.com video-sharing hub. Facebook abandoned its foray into daily deals before it even went public, choosing instead to be a gateway for third-party merchants now via Facebook Gifts.

The market didn’t like Renren’s outlook, forecasting $44 million to $46 million in revenue for the current quarter. That’s less than the $47.3 million that Wall Street was targeting and a 6% to 10% sequential decline from the fourth quarter’s top line showing.

Analysts simply blew it this time. Nearly every single Chinese dot-com that has already reported has warned of a sequential dip during the first quarter. It’s a seasonal thing, and the late start to the Chinese New Year is making things worse.

Market bellwether Baidu set the tone last month, when China‘s top search engine projected a 4% to 7% sequential revenue decline this quarter. Youku TudouChina‘s leading video-sharing website, and an appropriate benchmark given Renren’s push to take the company on through 56.com — spooked investors with a forecasted sequential decline of 19% to 25% this quarter.

In other words, Renren’s expected quarter-over-quarter decline of 8% at the midpoint of its range is perfectly reasonable. The 37% to 43% year-over-year growth is more than respectable.

Investors may want …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Youku Tudou Is No SINA or Baidu

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

China‘s leading video website operator is growing and its losses are narrowing, but that may not be enough.

Youku Tudou opened sharply lower this morning after capping off a strong quarter with lukewarm guidance for the current period.

Things have been clicking since Youku completed its acquisition of smaller rival Tudou this summer. Revenue in the fourth quarter clocked in at a better-than-expected $102.1 million, or 30% more than what the two companies combined for a year earlier. Youku Tudou still has some more synergies to squeeze out of the deal but its quarterly deficit shrank to $0.11 a share.

Analysts were expecting red ink of roughly $0.15 a share on less than $100 million in revenue.

However, then Youku Tudou had the gall to publicly look ahead. The former dot-com darling is targeting $77 million to $83 million in revenue for this year’s freshman quarter, and that’s well off the $88 million that Wall Street was modeling.

Sequential slides are normal, and this is a seasonal thing. Youku itself saw its revenue decline 13% between the fourth quarter and the first quarter a year earlier. At the midpoint we’re looking at a heartier 22% sequential drop this year, but Youku Tudou isn’t alone. The late arrival of the Chinese New Year this year has left most of the country’s leading Internet companies warning of substantial sequential dips.

SINA‘s guidance calls for a 13% sequential downtick in revenue this quarter, and that’s given its recent moves to begin monetizing its red-hot SINA Weibo micro-blogging platform. Even the typically resilient Baidu will be falling short. China‘s top search engine is targeting a 4% to 7% sequential dip on the top line this quarter.

The problem for Youku Tudou is that the revenue drop is more pronounced, and that’s with every incentive to finally begin monetizing mobile usage this year.

There’s no denying that the merger of Youku and Tudou is a good thing. The combined sites now command roughly a third of China‘s video streaming market. Cost savings will be realized. However, streaming video isn’t an easy gig, especially in China where the more magnetic content is commercially licensed.

Youku Tudou spent 26% of last quarter’s revenue on bandwidth costs in serving up the chunky video files and another 43% on content costs. We’re talking about a model where the gross margins are already leaner than the chunky net margins that investors find in Baidu and online gaming giant NetEase.com.

Youku Tudou‘s margins will improve in time, but this will never be one of China‘s most profitable companies in terms of margins. Bandwidth costs may fall and marketers may be willing to spend more to reach viewers, but investors need to be realistic.

Youku Tudou is the star player of a growing online niche, but there’s more to worry about than just this sharp sequential slip.

A smart mobile play
The mobile revolution is still in its infancy, but with so many different companies it …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance