Tencent says its video service has more subscribers than any other in China

China's homegrown video services are part YouTube, part Netflix

Tencent

Xinmei Shen

Published: 6:30pm, 20 Mar 2018

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This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Tencent says its video service now has over 62.5 million paying subscribers, the most among all video streaming services in China.

But Tencent is far from the only on-demand video choice for Chinese users. Just one day before Tencent's announcement, rival iQiyi launched plans for a $2.4 billion IPO in the US, saying it has 60.1 million paying subscribers.

Without Netflix and YouTube in China, the country's homegrown giants all have their own video services.

The three biggest ones - Tencent Video, iQiyi and Youku are each owned by Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba respectively. (Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)

The three sites aren't quite like Netflix - they have plenty of free video and user generated clips, while also allowing people to pay a subscription fee to view other TV shows and movies.

The race between the three also means they're trying to create more original content - while also bringing over the best from the rest of the world.

iQiyi made an original rap show that became viral in 2017, but it also exclusively distributes Netflix shows like Stranger Things and Black Mirror. And Tencent has a deal with HBO to stream some of its shows including Games of Thrones (cut down by Chinese censors).

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