Alibaba Buys 8% Stake in Bilibili to Push Ads for Comics Fans
Zhang Yushuo
DATE:  Feb 15 2019
/ SOURCE:  yicai
Alibaba Buys 8% Stake in Bilibili to Push Ads for Comics Fans Alibaba Buys 8% Stake in Bilibili to Push Ads for Comics Fans

(Yicai Global) Feb. 15 -- A unit of Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding has acquired a minority stake in Tencent-backed video sharing platform Bilibili to deepen marketing collaboration between its e-commerce platform and the target company.

Taobao bought 8 percent of Bilibili's equity in the category of Z-shares that are usually held by employees, a report that was submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday shows.

The pair will integrate efforts to serve consumers particularly in the strong subculture of Animation, Comics and Games in China, the report added. The ACG fan base on Taobao has exceeded hundreds of millions of users and over half of them were born after 1995 or 2000, according to the Hangzhou-based parent.

Bilibili's [NASDAQ:BILI] stock price rose 3.96 percent yesterday to close at USD18.92 per share. The Shanghai-headquartered firm went public last March, pricing each American Depositary Receipt at USD11.50. 

Shenzhen's tech behemoth Tencent Holdings, a rival to Alibaba, paid USD317.6 million to own a 12 percent stake in Bilibili last October. 

Editor: Emmi Laine 

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Keywords:   Alibaba,Bilibili,E-Commerce