Alibaba Grows Entertainment Value With Damai Acquisition

Chinese online marketplace Alibaba continues its push to grow outside of its core retail businesses. Recently, the company fully acquired Chinese online ticketing platform Damai for an undisclosed sum, said Reuters. Alibaba first invested in Damai back in 2014.

“Ali announces its acquisition of Damai, part of our big entertainment strategy,” the firm said on its Sina Weibo platform. “This continues an earnest three-year romance.”

Damai’s ticketing platform will reportedly form a strategic part of the value chain in Alibaba’s push to grow its media and entertainment business.

“Damai.cn will be a powerful platform to distribute our media content as well as expand our user reach and engagement,” Alibaba told Reuters, noting there would be synergies with the company’s entertainment units Alibaba Music, Alibaba Pictures and Youku, the “YouTube of China” that Alibaba acquired for $3.7 billion back in 2015.

The Damai acquisition is just the latest in a string of entertainment industry investments. In October of last year, said Bloomberg, Alibaba devoted a fund of over than 10 billion yuan ($1.48 billion) for new projects in media and entertainment.

And the investments look to be paying off. In its latest earnings figures released back in January, Alibaba reported that its digital media and entertainment sector saw 273 percent growth year over year upon the consolidation of Youku Tudou.