Alibaba Pictures Adds Anew To A Run Of Red Ink

Alibaba Pictures Group, an entertainment and film unit of China e-commerce leader Alibaba Group, added to its run of red ink by reporting a first-half loss of 162.1 million yuan, or $24.7 million, in the six months to September.

That compares with a first-half loss of 390.4 million yuan during the same period last year, according to a filing Thursday evening.  Revenue declined by 38% to 926.7 million yuan. (See details here.)

The “development of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ever-changing macro environment have brought various challenges to the overall operations of the group,” the company said in a filing.

Alibaba Pictures’ new losses follow four years of red ink.  It lost 1.15 billion yuan for the 12 months ending March 2020, 253.6 million yuan for the year ending March 31, 2019, 1.8 billion yuan for the 15 months ending March 31, 2018, and 958.6 million yuan for the year ended December 31, 2016. It made 466 million yuan in 2015, but lost 415 million yuan in 2014.  All in all, the losses total more than the equivalent of $580 million during the period.

Alibaba Group, whose main founder is billionaire Jack Ma, made a big push into the entertainment industry in 2014 just ahead of its world-record IPO at the New York Stock Exchange.  Alibaba Group purchased a 60% stake in ChinaVision Media Group, a Hong Kong-listed media and program content producer, for $805 million at a price of HK$0.50 a share in June 2014. The stock tripled in connection with the announcement, and ChinaVision changed its name to Alibaba Pictures. Shares peaked at HK$4.9 in 2015; they closed at HK$1.02 on Thursday and have lost a fifth of their value in the past year. Alibaba Group, a powerful e-commerce leader whose businesses also include finance, logistics and supermarkets, owns half of Alibaba Pictures, according to the pictures unit’s latest annual report.

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