Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group is teaming up with Lions Gate Entertainment, the US studio that produced The Hunger Games films, to offer Chinese owners of Alibaba’s set-top box a subscription TV service, write Charles Clover and Shannon Bond.
The service, expected to launch in August, is the latest in a string of deals and tie-ups that have kept Alibaba in the news since the start of the year. The company plans to launch a New York initial public offering to raise about $20bn, potentially the world’s biggest, later this summer.
It has spent more than $6bn over the past 12 months on acquisitions, and has stepped up the pace rapidly as the IPO date nears. Alibaba is looking to broaden its business model from being an ecommerce company to a diversified provider of entertainment and other services both online and offline.