歡喜傳媒將與英企在華推出電影流媒體服務

The Chinese movie mogul behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has formed a joint venture with a London-based start-up to launch a film streaming service in China.

出品《臥虎藏龍》的中國電影業巨頭已和倫敦一家創業企業組建合資公司，將在中國市場推出電影流媒體服務。

Dong Ping, who sold film production company ChinaVision to Alibaba for $800m in 2014, last year took control of Hong Kong-listed company HuanXi Media. Huanxi will announce on Thursday that it has agreed an alliance with Mubi, a streaming service headquartered in the UK.

2014年以8億美元把電影製作公司文化中國傳播集團(ChinaVision)出售給阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的董平，去年控股了香港上市公司歡喜傳媒(Huanxi Media)。週四，歡喜傳媒將宣佈，已和總部設在英國的流媒體服務供應商Mubi達成聯盟。

China’s cinema box office revenues surged 40 per cent last year to $6.8bn and the country will overtake the US as the world’s largest movie market by 2018, according to research group IHS. But its market for film subscription services is still relatively small.

調查集團IHS表示，去年，中國電影票房收入大漲40%，增至68億美元，到2018年中國將超過美國成爲全球最大電影市場。但中國的電影訂閱服務市場仍然相對較小。

Netflix, the world’s largest film streaming service, which expanded into 130 more countries this month, has yet to enter China — having failed to obtain permission from the government to do so.

到本月，世界最大的電影流媒體服務供應商Netflix已擴展到了130多個國家。但由於未能獲得中國政府的許可，Netflix至今未能打入中國市場。

Huanxi and Mubi said they expected to launch their service in China this year, though they declined to detail how they would obtain the necessary licences from Beijing.

歡喜傳媒和Mubi表示，他們期望今年在中國推出電影流媒體服務，不過他們拒絕詳述將如何向中國政府取得必要牌照。

“We know how to navigate through all the regulations,” said Steven Xiang, chief executive of Huanxi Media.

“我們知道如何繞過所有的監管規定，”歡喜傳媒的首席執行官項紹琨(Steven Xiang)表示。

Mubi’s rivals in the Chinese market include Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, whose video offering iQiyi has more than 10m paying subscribers.

Mubi在中國市場的競爭對手包括阿里巴巴、騰訊(Tencent)和百度(Baidu)。百度旗下的視頻網站愛奇藝(iQiyi)擁有逾1000萬名付費訂戶。