Youku

Youku Inc.
Type of site
 Video hosting service
Available in Chinese
Founded March 2003 (2003-03)
Headquarters Beijing, China[1][2]
Founder(s) Victor Koo
Industry Internet
Services Online services
Revenue US$ 649.5 million (2014)[3]
Employees 2,104[4]
Parent Youku Tudou
Slogan(s) "The World is Watching"
Website www.youku.com
Alexa rank Negative increase 79 (April 2014)[5]
Registration Optional
(required to upload and/or comment on videos)
Launched December 21, 2003 (2003-12-21)
Current status Active

Youku Inc., formerly Youku.com Inc.,[2][6] doing business as Youku (simplified Chinese: 优酷; traditional Chinese: 優酷; pinyin: Yōukù; literally: "excellent (and) cool"),[7] is a video hosting service based in Beijing, China.

Youku has its headquarters on the fifth floor of Sinosteel Plaza (simplified Chinese: 中钢国际广场; traditional Chinese: 中鋼國際廣場; pinyin: Zhōnggāng Guójì Guǎngchǎng) in Haidian District, Beijing.[8][9]

On March 12, 2012, Youku reached an agreement to acquire Tudou in a stock-for-stock transaction, the new entity being named Youku Tudou Inc.[10] It has more than 500 million monthly active users, with 800 million daily video views.[11]

Youku is one of China's top online video and streaming service platforms, alongside with iQiyi, Sohu, LeTV, V.QQ.com (Tencent Video), PPTV, 56.com and Funshion. However, Youku's domination in the Chinese market has been toppled by its competitor Baidu's iQiyi.[12]

History

Youku was founded by Victor Koo (S: 古永锵, T: 古永鏘, P: Gǔ Yǒngqiāng),[13][14] former President of Chinese Internet portal Sohu. Initial funding for the site came from 1Verge, a fund raised by Koo. A beta version of the site was launched with limited geographic reach in June 2006, and the website was formally launched in December 2006. In 2007, the company received $25 million in funding from venture capitalists.[15] 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, and Chengwei Ventures.[16]

The company initially emphasized user-generated content but has since shifted its focus to professionally produced videos licensed from over 1,500 content partners.[16]

As of January 2010, Youku.com was ranked #1 in the Chinese Internet video sector according to Internet metrics provider CR-Nielsen,[17] (keeping in mind that YouTube is banned in China). In 2008, Youku partnered with Myspace in China.[18] Later that year, Youku became the sole online video provider embedded in the China Edition of popular web browser Mozilla Firefox.[19]

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.[20]

Youku recorded gross revenues of 200 million RMB in 2009.[21]

On December 8, 2010, Youku was listed at the New York Stock Exchange 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. [22]

Features

Youku permits users to upload videos of arbitrary length. Youku has partnered with over 1,500 license holders, including television stations, distributors, and film and TV production companies in China that regularly upload media content on the site.

Youku allows the Government of China to check for inappropriate or offensive videos (see Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China).

Youku's video library includes many full-length films and TV episodes. Viewers from around the world can see these films on Youku for free, though often with Chinese subtitles. Other popular sites such as YouTube cannot display this content because of copyright restrictions, but these laws either do not exist in China or are poorly enforced, enabling Youku to broadcast copyrighted content from their website without license.In January 2010, Youku implemented a digital fingerprinting technology intended to eliminate copyright infringing content on the site.

Merger

On March 12, 2012, two of the biggest online video companies in China, Youku and Tudou, announced plans to merge.[23] At the time of the announcement, Youku had 21.8 percent of market share and Tudou had 13.7 percent. The name of the new company would be named Youku Tudou Inc.[24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Contact Us." Youku. Retrieved on December 27, 2010. "Beijing 5th Floor, Sinosteel Plaza, 8 Haidian Dajie, Haidian District, Beijing, 100080, China."
  2. 1 2 "版权声明." Youku. Retrieved on December 27, 2010. "北京市海淀区海淀大街8号中钢国际大厦5层" and "合一信息技术（北京）有限公司"
  3. ↑ "Financial statement FY2014." Youku. Retrieved on April 22, 2015
  4. ↑ "Youku Tudou Inc (ADR): NYSE:YOKU quotes & news - Google Finance". Google.com. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  5. ↑ "Youku.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-04-01.
  6. ↑ "Company Overview." Youku. Retrieved December 27, 2010.
  7. ↑ Moore, Malcolm (December 14, 2010). "Youku founder Victor Koo believes only China can help his company grow, make money and even beat piracy". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  8. ↑ "版权声明." Youku. Retrieved on 27 December 2010. "北京市海淀区海淀大街8号中钢国际大厦5层"
  9. ↑ "Contact Us." Youku. Retrieved 27 December 2010. "Beijing 5th Floor, Sinosteel Plaza, 8 Haidian Dajie, Haidian District, Beijing, 100080, China."
  10. ↑ Chao, Loretta; Steger, Isabella (March 12, 2012). "China's Youku to Buy Chief Rival Tudou". The Wall Street Journal. New York. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
  11. ↑ "Youku Tudou Partners with Xiaomi to Accelerate Multi-Screen Ecosystem Development". Youku Tudou. November 12, 2014. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  12. ↑ Roettgers, Janko (March 10, 2014). "Baidu's Iqiyi overtakes Youku as China's most popular video service". GIGAOM. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  13. ↑ "The next generation of entrepreneurs." The Economist. November 21, 2012. Retrieved on July 28, 2013. "Victor Koo (Gu Yongqiang) is worth watching,[...]Mr Koo’s firm, Youku Tudou,[...]"
  14. ↑ "09中国互联网大会嘉宾：优酷CEO古永锵." (Archive) Sina. August 20, 2009. Retrieved on July 28, 2013. "古永锵 (Victor Koo)[...]"
  15. ↑ Kristen Nicole2007-11-21 06:47:07 UTC (2007-11-21). "Youku Hits the Jackpot with $25M". Mashable.com. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  16. 1 2 Chao, Loretta (December 21, 2009). "China Site Youku.com Raises $40 Million". The Wall Street Journal.
  17. ↑ 华瑞网标（CR-Nielsen）公司_创建科学测评体系，挖掘中国网络价值
  18. ↑ Mike Sachoff (2008-03-14). "MySpace China Partners With Video Site Youku". WebProNews. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  19. ↑ "Youku and Mozilla Partner to Enrich Online Video Viewing at 谋智新闻". Blog.mozilla.com. 2012-01-04. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
  20. ↑ Global Times - Video sites cooperate on copyrighted films Archived December 20, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  21. ↑ INTERVIEW - Youku eyes overseas listing, partnerships
  22. ↑ Youku Investor Relations
  23. ↑ China’s Top 2 Video Portals YouKu and Tudou to Combine China Internet Watch, March 12, 2013
  24. ↑ "Chinese Web Video Rivals To Merge". March 12, 2012.

Further reading

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