Industry News

Enlight Media increases stake in Chinese market leading online movie ticket firm Maoyan

Beijing-based TV and film company Enlight Media has acquired another 11 per cent share of Chinese online movie ticketing service provider Maoyan.

Maoyan is one of the three leading players within the Chinese online movie ticketing market, and partners with 5,200 cinemas and has 120 million registered users. In 2015, it recorded online ticket sales transaction value of $2.4bn (€2bn/£1.8bn).

The deal will see Enlight Media pay $152m to Enlight Holdings, the controlling entity of Enlight Media, for its stake in Maoyan.

Following the acquisition, Enlight Media will hold 30.11 per cent of the company, while Enlight Holdings owns 47.02 per cent of the firm.

The agreement valued Maoyan at $1.38bn, an increase from its worth in May of $1.27bn when Enlight acquired 19 per cent of the company for $240m, according to a security filing submitted by Shenzhen-listed Enlight Media.

According to Bigdata Research, Maoyan holds the largest market share of the domestic online movie ticketing market with 23 per cent, while Tencent Holdings’ Weiying Technology has 20 per cent and Alibaba Group’s Taopiaopiao has 16 per cent.

Weiying and Maoyan were reportedly in merger deal talks two months previously, though nothing has come to fruition and it is not clear if negotiations are on-going, according to the China Money Network website.

Maoyan, which was founded in 2012 by a Chinese on-demand local services firm backed by Tencent, separated its ticketing unit into an independent company in 2016.