BAT battle for the Lion-share in Online Ticketing Market

With the rise of online ticketing platform， it is now nothing special for the Chinese people to pay less than $2 for enjoying a Hollywood blockbuster.Behind such a low price， there must be lots of Internet ticketing platform who have subsided the price gap to make this available. That is to say， the fight that BAT （the abbreviation for Chinese Internet giants： Baidu， Alibaba and Tencent ） are undergoing now is actually a financial competition among these internet-based giants.Recently， the successful financing of Taobao movie has further updated the battle between BAT in online movie ticket market. Billions of funds has been brought into the online movie ticket fields. The very reason for the BAT to pay for large amount of subsidies lies in the upcoming copyright income system which is considered to be a “big cake”for the future of the entertainment in-dustry in China.

Taobao movie finally won a total $260mln financing in its A round

According to the Beijing News report， Ali picture has announced that the companies ticketing business platform Taobao movie won 17 billion yuan （$260mln ）in the A round of financing. After this round of financing， the overall valuation of the Taobao movie has reached over $2.08 bln （ when valuation surpassed $1 bln， the company will be considered as a unicorn one）.

Later on， Taobao movie officially changed its name into “ Amoy Ticket “， and re-positioned the platform as a “comprehensive entertainment marketing one”.For example， Amoy Ticket conducted a strategic cooperation with another on-line ticketing service provider “ Damai Network “ ， ever since May 16th， tickets provided by Damai Network will also be available on Amoy tickets site； furthermore， Amoy Ticket will share sources with Ali sports to carry out more sports-related tickets for users.Besides， the whole Ali-system innovated in building an industrial chain system which will integrate all the independent businesses of Alibaba group into an interconnected one. Sooner or later， Amoy ticket will connect with Tmall， Taobao， Alipay， Sesame Credit and other membership rights provided by the Alibaba group.

Movie analyst Huang Guofeng from Enfodesk views the current valuation for Ali picture as a new trend in the movie industry. He points out that the online ticketing market is no longer in the stage which merely calls for simple comparison of valuation. Now the key point lies in the complementary level between the company and its investors. According to the announcement， all the funds received in A round will be used in developing the O2O platform as well as in enhancing the market position of Amoy ticket.endprint

Fierce battles have been ignite among BAT in online ticketing market

Given the report from Hangzhou Daily， the domestic film market continues to boom in recent years. A comparison of the film market box office data between China and U.S. shows that in the year 2012， the size of the box office in these two nations are $2.6 bln and $10.8 bln respectively. That is to say the Chinese volume is only a quarter of the U.S. Amount. However， three years later， the gap between these two nations has been extremely narrowed. China and the United States reached $6.8 bln and $11.1 bln respectively at the box office in 2015. We can see that China has doubled the statistics in domestic film market.

As a matter of face， the online ticketing platform field has also been triggered at the same time with the ceaseless competition in the film market. Last December， the well-known online ticket platform Guevara Ticket officially merged into Tencent camp. Ever since the M&A of the pioneer on-line ticketing platform in China， Tencent owned Micro Ticket initiated the battle for shares in the online ticketing market which led to a series of Internet giants to announce their entrance into this game later on.

It is known that the Micro ticket has completed its C+ round of financing from the God Entertainment together with Huaren holdings and its mother company Tencent， before the M&A. The total financing amount reached $ 2.6 bln. When all these preparation finished， Micro Ticket fundamentally shuffled the ranking of ticket booking industry and gained its leading role in a rather short time， which brought great challenge to Maoyan Movie， the former leader in the same section. According to the statistics provided by EnfoDesk， in the third quarter of 2015， Maoyan Movie still account for the lion share of the online movie ticketing market that turn out to be 26.73%； Micro Ticket ranked second， accounting for 15.8%； Coming down is the Baidu Nuomi， Taobao movie and the Dianpin Coupon.

At the beginning， Amoy Ticket accounts for less than 5% in this section. By the end of 2015， its share climbed to 15%. Zhang Qiang， the CEO of Amoy Ticket said that， Amoy ticket will be join hands with the offline cinema to integrate the online and offline sources they could find， while taking advantage of Ali group in the e-commerce field to build a brand new O2O marketing model in the movie ticketing section.

Meanwhile， taking active part in the upstream chain of the movie industry， such as the production， distribution and projection of movie etc. has become a prevailing choice among the on-line ticketing platform. In the year 2015， Taobao pictures admitted Amoy Ticket as its branch in issuing film and holding ticketing cooperation in various ways， including cooperate with the blockbusters producers. By far， they have already invested in over 84 films globally and recorded $34.5 bln box office in total， which accounted for more than 50% of the total box office in China. Baidu pictures has declared that investment will not limit on the ticket， they will involve themselves into the whole movie production chain： distribution， advertising and other pitching or promotion.endprint

In this regard， Mr.Huang Guofeng deem that it is logical and feasible for BAT to layout its projections in the movie industry based on their experience in online ticketing as the starting point.” In earlier stage， growth of online ticketing depends on the traffic. All the platform will do whatever they can in attracting enough traffic to fulfill and maintain the original growth. Thereafter， the ticketing business will serve as the touchstone for BAT to make their way into the whole chain of movie industry： they may target at assisting the movie theaters in membership management and online business platform construction in the downstream chain； involving themselves both in online and offline film release and looking for third-party companies to cooperate with； investing directly in the film project and hoarding high-quality IP through jointly develop and pan-entertaining procession. During the period from 2016 to 2017， the whole industry still belongs to the startup phase which may allow for around 20～30 players to exist， meanwhile the integration and spin off will push forward as well. BAT will still play the leading role n the ticketing market， although we may witness some short term change， they will always hold on tight to the the first echelon .

The film company will turn into money-making tool for BAT？

Back in 2014， movie derivatives consuming market profits over tens of billions would be deemed as fancy without doubt， the simple reason lies in that derivative earnings accounted for only 10% of the film box office revenue in China， compared to 70% in the United States of America. In spite of the huge disparity， capitals from various quarters， especially from the Internet giants， have shown their favor in the film derivative product market.

Originally， BAT aims at integrate the advantage in online and offline interaction with their dominate advertisement resources via preparing for the movie production， dispersing and investment. Nevertheless， compared to the traditional comprehensive entertainment media group who has stars， directors， production teams and traditional comprehensive media business， the Internet enterprises found out that it is really a great challenge for them to lead the trend in specific film project. Thus， in the year 2015， Internet enterprise mainly played the sponsors role in the high-achieving movies， and served more in the dispersing phase.endprint

Expert told us that the successful IPO of entertainment groups like Huayi Brothers Group and Enlight Media really matter in approving something： the traditional film companies still hold the final say for the whole movie related industrial chain， especially in the production and distribution section. Whereas， the Internet intruders are definitely not willing to position themselves only as a supporter for the traditional media groups when Chinese film industry are on the way to conquer the whole worlds movie territories. Regarding this point， on-line ticketing service could be a better way-out for their ambitions in grabbing the lion-share in the movie industry. In addition， they have large amount of accesses to the users. As is known to all that he who enjoys the larger user base will rule the on-line business. At present， the independent operating platform Micro Ticket has three entranced， including the movie ticket function in its own mobile app， Wechat wallet and QQ wallet； at the end of the same year， Taobao Picture came on-line； later on， Nuomi network was turned into Baidu Nuomi， which has food ordering， ticket booking and leisure entertainment all in one. By the accomplishment of all these， the Internet giants official declared their furious battle in the online ticketing market.

Competition begets the price war， online ticketing platforms have no other choice but to challenge the limit price： 9.9 yuan（less than $2） for a blockbuster. Thanks for the great price gap， the online ticketing section contributed about 45.8% to the total revenue of box office in China， while the figure in 2015 leaped to 70%. The rapidly development comes partly from their own advantages in online business， what really counts for this phenomenon is the large capital amount invested in subsiding the gap between the real cost and the sales price available to the netizens. In a matter of fact， online booking platforms are grouping a ‘ Super Group Purchase ‘： group purchase can help get a discount， and if it is one of larger scale， the buyers will benefit much more from the discount given by the movie producers. Even if the discount will make the price lower， 9.9 yuan will never be a price directly set by the movie producers only. Without the subside from the BAT， they just cannot afford such a price since making ends meet is the primary task. BAT funds the price gap with long term target at cultivating users habits， a tendency to-wards shopping on-line. By cultivating such habit， on-line ticketing platforms can easily attract traffic and attention. The bet to cultivate consumer habit may finally contribute to the skyrocketing in the box office， and help realize profit in this section later on.endprint

Subsiding one ticket for more than ten yuan？ BAT behold sufficient reasons to support this

The essence lies in this abnormal price war is the integration of resources in the film industry. The online ticketing service they offered turn out to enable them to penetrate into the upstream chains of movie production.For example， Tencent completed three rounds of financing after the layout of the pan entertainment project in domestic market；Ali Pictures accomplished the acquisition of Taobao Movie and the initiation of the whole entertainment industrial chain at the end of last year；Baidu Nuomi evolved from selling tickets to the participation in all the IP hatch， content production and film dispersing sections.

On the other hand， the expansion in the downstream market， which involves not only investment in cinemas，but in the development of derivatives through social interactions as well. For example， when the movie Goodbye Mr. Loser released， the Micro Ticket have had a try in issuing a series of stationery boxes that calls for 200 yuan a set for pre-sale. The total sales volume recorded over thousand sets.

Despite only a try in the domestic film industry， the Internet channels that enables related derivatives and other non box office revenue to bring up much more income really give new birth to this field. Imagine that if the U.S. film market revenue is based on the ratio of 7 to 3 between the box office and the derivative incomes， the latter one directed by Internet giants in China will leverage at least 100 billion revenue. Given this point， the suppose that BAT will soon gain the final say in the film Industry in the near future， and turn the traditional film companies into the subordinate to them.

Nowadays， the interaction between the Internet Co. and the traditional film production company is nothing special in China. The A round financing for Taobao movie is nothing but a private equity funds muscle showing ball， in addition to that Hehe Pictures， Bona Film， Huace Pictures， Lianrui pictures and Nanpai Entertainment Co. have all take active part in the building of a new eco-system for Chinese film industry in the neat future with Alibaba Group. This cooperation， however， is somehow unprecedented. Albeit the proportion of online ticketing still enjoys steady growth， it is not the high time to draw the conclusion that traditional film producing company will serve as the attaching department of BAT in the film industry. It is crystal clear that content rules in film industry， any innovation in ticketing and dispersing wound never be the alternatives for attracting stories and profound contents.endprint