The chairman of the board is Victor Koo, the founder of Youku. The company's name was changed to Youku Tudou Inc. Prior to the announcement of the merger, Youku was the #11 website in China, and Tudou was #14. On March 12 2012, Youku and Tudou two of the biggest online video companies in China announced plans to merge, creating one of China's biggest video sites. In December 2018, the company announced a layoff of the president of the unit Yang Weidong due to his assistance to the police in investigation about the case of seeking economic benefits. Victor Koo was once an employee of Bain & Company, one of the most prominent management consulting firms in the world. seems to have no relation to the Chinese domain youku.cn. For the first 9 months of 2010 Youku reported revenue of $35.1 million and recorded a loss of $25 million during this period. The stock closed at $33.44 on its first day of trading giving the company a market capitalization of approximately $3.3 billion. On December 8 2010, Youku was listed at the New York Stock Exchange for its first time. Youku recorded gross revenues of 200 million RMB in 2009. In January 2010, Youku and competitor Tudou announced the creation of a video broadcasting exchange network, under which Youku and Tudou will cross-license professionally produced video content. Later that year, Youku became the sole online video provider embedded in the China Edition of Mozilla Firefox. In 2008, Youku partnered with Myspace in China.
Īs of January 2010, was ranked #1 in the Chinese Internet video sector according to Internet metrics provider CR-Nielsen, (keeping in mind that YouTube is banned in China).
The company initially emphasized user-generated content but has since shifted its focus to professionally produced videos licensed from over 1,500 content partners. Major investors include Brookside (Bain) Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Maverick Capital, and Chengwei Ventures. In December 2009, the company announced that it had raised a total of $110 million in private equity funding. In 2007, the company received $25 million in funding from venture capitalists. A beta version of the site was launched with limited geographic reach in June 2003, and the website was formally launched in December 2003. Initial funding for the site came from 1Verge, a fund raised by Koo. Youku was founded by Victor Koo (Gu Yongqiang), former President of Chinese Internet portal Sohu. Youku now has streaming services for shows and films that can be distinguished from YouTube. However, Youku's domination in the Chinese market has been toppled by its competitor Baidu's iQiyi.
Youku is one of China's top online video and streaming service platforms, along with iQiyi, Sohu, LeTV, Tencent Video, PPTV, 56.com and Funshion. It has more than 500 million monthly active users, with 800 million daily video views. On March 12 2012, Youku reached an agreement to merger with Tudou in a stock-for-stock transaction, the new entity being named Youku Tudou Inc. Youku has its headquarters on the fifth floor of Sinosteel Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing. It operates as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited.
'excellent/cool'), is a video hosting service based in Beijing, China. Youku Tudou Inc., (formerly Youku Inc.) doing business as Youku ( Chinese: 优酷 lit. (required to upload and/or comment on videos)