Chen Tong's 1 billion US dollars was unsealed: the first investment was actually in Youku Tudou

Today's news said that the one billion US dollars that Lei Jun personally "awarded" to Chen Tong, which everyone has been eyeing for a long time, has begun to be opened and used. Surprisingly, the first destination of this huge amount of money was not the previously rumored video website iQiyi, but Youku Tudou, which is under the control of Alibaba.

On the afternoon of November 12, Youku Tudou Group Chairman and CEO Gu Yongqiang, Xiaomi co-founder Wang Chuan, Vice President in charge of content investment and operations Chen Tong, Youku Tudou Group Chief Content Officer Zhu Xiangyang, and Senior Vice President Li Jie attended the strategic cooperation press conference together.

At the meeting, the two parties jointly announced that Youku Tudou Group and Xiaomi will carry out in-depth cooperation in content and technology in the field of Internet video, and jointly develop technologies such as mobile video playback. Xiaomi will invest in Youku Tudou and work closely with them in self-made content and joint production, production and distribution.

Why Youku Tudou?

Whether it is the rumored iQiyi or the Youku Tudou that has been officially announced this time, in fact, before Chen Tong officially joined Xiaomi Technology, the general direction of these content investments had already been determined.

The reason why Xiaomi chose Youku Tudou for its first investment is that it values ​​its important position in the video website industry. As the No. 1 video platform industry, Youku Tudou has more than 500 million monthly independent visitors on multiple screens and more than 800 million daily views; its self-made content not only accounts for more than 10% of the total traffic, but also has accumulated a large number of fans with self-made programs such as "Goddess and Man", "Lovers Travel", "Tudou Image Festival", "Youth Choice" and self-made channels.

Compared with Xiaomi's hardware products, which are extremely poor in content, such a huge content resource is exactly what it needs. After introducing the rich content of Youku Tudou, Xiaomi TV, Xiaomi Box, Xiaomi mobile phone, and even the entire Xiaomi ecological industry chain will have a qualitative leap.

At present, the question of how Xiaomi will invest in Youku Tudou is still of concern. As we all know, Alibaba has invested $1.22 billion in Youku Tudou, holding 16.5% of the shares. Alibaba, which hopes to open up an important link in the video industry chain through the acquisition of Youku Tudou, will definitely not want to give up power to Xiaomi. Therefore, some industry insiders have analyzed that Xiaomi may invest tens of millions of dollars in Youku Tudou through the secondary market (US stock market).

iQIYI is set in stone

Regardless of whether iQiyi will be Xiaomi's first shot in content investment, its significance as the largest investment Xiaomi has made in its four years of existence cannot be ignored.

Although it is unknown why Youku Tudou became the first beneficiary of the $1 billion, Xiaomi's plan to acquire a stake in iQiyi is still a done deal. According to a source, the press conference for Xiaomi's official investment in iQiyi for $300 million may be announced next Wednesday, and at the same time, a Xiaomi executive will join the iQiyi board of directors.

Xiaomi's big investment in the entire content industry is ultimately due to problems in its development in the field of Internet TV. In terms of the layout of the Internet TV industry by major video websites, iQiyi has adopted the same layout method as Youku Tudou, that is, cooperating with hardware manufacturers. This also coincides with Xiaomi's "only buying but not making" approach to the content industry.

It is understood that when Xiaomi was preparing to invest 300 million US dollars in iQiyi, Baidu, as a new major shareholder of iQiyi, had also added an investment of about the same amount. The comparison can't help but further deepen people's doubts about Xiaomi's cooperation with Baidu.

What will be the future of Xiaomi?

Lei Jun has publicly stated more than once the importance of the content industry to the current and future construction of Xiaomi's industrial chain. "The content industry is a matter of life and death for Xiaomi TV, Xiaomi Box, Xiaomi mobile phones and tablets. Solving the content problem has become an urgent issue for Xiaomi."

Especially since this year, with the strengthening of the supervision of the Internet TV industry by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the content shortcomings of Xiaomi TV and Xiaomi Box in the field of Internet TV have begun to emerge and become their fatal flaws. The layout of the content industry with substantive significance will not only help Xiaomi get rid of the embarrassing situation of radio and television supervision, but more importantly, it may be a key step in the construction of Xiaomi's ecological system.

In the future, Xiaomi, which started out as a hardware company, will certainly invest more to ensure the diversity and stability of its content and to stack its advantages. Of course, it does not rule out the possibility of developing and producing content on its own. But all these actions will be attributed to cultivating more "Mi fans".

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.