Alibaba Pictures Group Posted Full Year Profit

Due to acquisitions and a deal with Paramount for Tom Cruise Mission Impossible, Alibaba Pictures Group steered last year by reporting a full year profit.

Alibaba Group Holding is very much interested in expanding its business in the media industry. It is not only investing to improve and bolster its media division but it is also making deals and acquisitions that would further help in growing in this domain. In March 2014, Alibaba acquired almost 60% stakes in ChinaVision, valued at $805 million. After acquiring, it registered it as a film company next month, which was first named Alibaba Films Group and then changed it to Alibaba Pictures Group in the later month.

Alibaba Group was quite confident of its Alibaba Pictures and wanted to come up with the best. Alibaba Pictures was boosted by the financial gains from a stock offering which helped the Films Group to end its year on a high. It might be a tough start in the beginning but with time, the film subsidiary did quite well in 2015. The Beijing based studio, which is also the film subsidiary of Jack Ma’s online retailing giant managed to post a full year profit of $71.7 million (RMB 466 million).

The result is a massive improvement as Alibaba Pictures Group reported a full year loss of $64.1 million in 2014, which was its first year in the industry. The decision to invest in Paramount’s Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, which features one of the biggest Hollywood stars Tom Cruise, was brilliant. The movie brought in nearly $10.6 million in revenues for this year and increased the overall subsidiary’s profits by $1.1 million with this movie alone.

Alibaba Pictures Group (also known as APG) noticed the widening of its operating loss last year as well but one-time gains that also include share issuance with net proceeds of $1.5 billion (HK$ 12.1 billion) eventually helped in reporting full year profit. The acquisitions also helped APG to raise revenues, which were $40.6 million in 2015. Last year’s revenues were a year over year increase by 108.3%.

Yueke, which was acquired by APG for $134 million, is one of the biggest suppliers of cinema tickets to the viewers in China, which also majorly helped the company to raise such high revenues. APG gave credit to Yueke in an announcement, which contributed in much of its revenues.

The officials said that Yueke has proved to be an asset for the APG and they expect the acquisition to continue being a strong revenue generator in the times to come. China’s national box office is massively growing considering the situation and has expanded over 50% in just the first two months of 2016. Hence, the positive growth strategy would be key for Yueke and APG to improve revenue gains.

Alibaba To Invest In Flipkart If The Price Is Right

Alibaba is looking to buy stake in Flipkart and Snapdeal if they decide to offer discounts on their current valuations.

Alibaba Group Holding is currently not only looking to focus on its domestic growth but wants to increase its influence in the international markets as well. According to sources, it is believed that the Chinese tech company intends to purchase stake in one of the biggest Indian online retailer, Flipkart.

The e-commerce giant previously supported two Indian startups known as Snapdeal and Paytm but it is looking to further increase its presence and influence in the Indian market hence it is exploring to acquire stake in India’s largest internet firm, Flipkart.

The sources familiar to the matter told that the talks between both parties are at an initial stage and the result is mostly dependent on Flipkart. Three people with detailed knowledge of the matter reported that only if Flipkart is willing to offer a concession on its current value of $15 billion, then Alibaba Group might carry forward this deal in the future. Three people asked not to be identified in public because of the confidentiality of this matter.

The Chinese e-commerce giant is also in negotiation with another Indian company, Snapdeal, and it wants a discount on Snapdeal’s current valuation of $6.5 billion. Alibaba wants to grow its footprints in the region, two of three people said. So far, the spokespersons of Alibaba, Flipkart, and Snapdeal have not responded to the e-mails, which sought comments regarding this matter.

It is believed that there are not ‘too many’ takers in the Indian e-commerce market as of now which will approach Alibaba for cash in order to encourage Snapdeal and Flipkart to offer discounts. People told that both companies have enough money to fund their existing burn rates for the next one year. However, they will have to raise money in 2016 if they want to refill their fast emptying wallets. The cash, which they have to invest, is not enough to keep on going for eternity hence at some point they might need investments from other big tech firms.

Since May 2014, the valuation of Flipkart increased five times to $15 billion after it raised a massive $210 million from Tiger Global Management, DST Global, and others in a funding round. Snapdeal is also raising enough money to be right behind Flipkart in India’s e-commerce market. Its valuation increased six times when it raised $100 million in the same month in response to its funding round. Ever since then, both have raised enormous amounts worth $2.4 billion and $1.3 billion respectively.

If Alibaba’s deal with Flipkart goes through on mutual consent, it will make the Chinese firm one of the most important investors (out of 3) in the region. The other two are Japan’s SoftBank Group and Tiger Global Management.

One of the three people said, “You will see only a handful of investors, who have the potential to invest, arm-twist even the large unicorns in order to extract stake at cheap valuations.”

Amazon Drone Delivery Service Will Deliver Your Package Anywhere

Amazon new patent application will deliver products to customer at their instant location.

Amazon, Inc. is currently the reigning monarch of American online shopping. The company is the e-commerce giant in the domestic and international markets. It has expanded its global footprints to many countries, hence does great business as an online retailer now. Apart from this, the company has also bolstered its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, which is a massive $5 billion business now. Recently, the company has been pushing in for internet of things (IoT) and connectivity within devices.
Amazon recently started Drone Delivery services in order to speed up the delivery process of product orders to customers. The company started with a 1-hour program and a 2-hour program for this purpose. When it comes to delivering the product, the online retailer is trying everything to either speed up the delivery process to reduce the waiting time for customers or make the process convenient for them. Therefore, ‘AMZN' announced to deliver product directly to your ‘trunk' a couple of weeks ago. It has full rights from FAA to make it operational.
It is known that the ecommerce giant seeks to make the delivery process convenient through innovative and unconventional methods. The trunk delivery system was planned, however only in Germany for the time being, so that customers can receive their packages even if they are not at home. Now, the organization is planning a system to deliver packages wherever customers are present.
Reports suggest that the company is planning to ‘create a fleet' on drones that will be delivering products not only to customers' homes and workplaces but wherever they happen to be standing at that very instance. According to CNN, the company will name this service as "Bring It To Me". This delivery option will become a trademark Amazon patent application that will deliver products to you with a single click.
The ecommerce giant explains how this patent application works by stating an example where a user placed an order that is expected to be delivered to him within the next 30 minutes. The order is placed at his home but the next moment he plans to go to his friend's place. The company says, "As the ordered item is retrieved from inventory, the current location of the user's mobile device may be determined and the delivery location correspondingly updated. As such, the ordered item will be delivered to the user while the user is at their friend's house, or any other location."
The online business has it all planned to make user experience better and provide customers with the best possible option to receive their packages.

WalMart and Google ends relationship Over Local Shopping Ads

As reported in news, the relationship between two giant companies Google Inc. and WalMart stores has come to an end after the internet search company asked for the pricing and inventory data from the retail giant.
According to Wall Street Journal, WalMart was not comfortable with sharing information related to prices. Real strategy president of new builder firm said, the relation between both the companies is surfacing by the day. The disagreement between the companies is due to platform leverage struggle going on in retail. He further said, "Retailers not anymore sell products only, they are rapidly growing into technology platforms. That means that their reliance on, and relationships with, other technology platforms will continually evolve."
Walmart spokesperson said that we never talk about our discussion with suppliers. We do have versatile connection with Google Inc.
The search engine giant utilizes its Ads of inventory in order to create local stores and inventory reachable to online shopping. Google launched its service in the year 2013. To be a part of the service it asks the company's about its inventory and pricing data, however definite inventory information is not required.
As mentioned on company's website, the advertiser is required to send store data of a particular product, also daily update of price and inventory data.
The retail giant joined to avail online services last summer, and ended the link after a short period of time. Earlier last month, representatives from both the companies met to solve the issue. However, the news came put that Wal-Mart is planning to launch its own parallel service and have decided not to pay any one else for this.
WalMart has incurred billions lately to expand its online business. The retailer is extending its online contributions to almost 10 million goods and structuring its fulfillment network as an element of the investment. The company has also allocated cash for e-commerce, mobile app and website. At the time of Christmas, a feature was added to download the store map, which will help them to locate the products. The Sam Walton based company is using its online power to attract customers.
Chief Executive Officer of WalMart, Neil Ashe said on a conference call last month, "We've talked about the importance of investing in talent and the fact that we are building a technology company inside the world's largest retailer. In the past year, we have been able to build up our team to the critical mass needed to be that technology company."
Spieckerman said, as the connection between retail industry and tech is getting distorted day by day, it is not unusual that partnership between giant companies like Google and Wal-Mart gets weaken in short time period.