Maoyan, A Tencent-Backed Mobile Movie Ticketing Service, Plans To IPO

Morning Report: Mobile ticketing service, Maoyan, backed by Tencent and Meituan, is rumored to be pursuing an IPO in Hong Kong later this year.

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Chinese online ticketing company, Maoyan, is rumored to be planning a Hong Kong IPO with possible value of $1 billion according to Bloomberg.

With Chinese investors looking to cash in on potential box office hits in Hollywood while Hollywood looks to the growing Chinese middle class for revenue, this is a good time to be in the business of ticketing. According to Reuters, China represents the second largest movie market in the world and nearly 80 percent of consumers buy tickets online.

Maoyan raised roughly $150 million in a funding round by Tencent Holdings in November. Backed by Beijing Enlight Media, Maoyan was founded in 2016 by Xing Wang, the CEO and co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Meituan, which also holds a stake in the company.

Prior to that massive funding round, Maoyan also acquired Tencent-backed Beijing Weiying Technologies in a merger in September. Weiying is another mobile ticketing platform embedded in Tencent’s massively popular app WeChat. By combining the platforms of the two companies including Maoyan’s film investment and promotion services, Tencent, Meituan-Dianping, and Enlight Media—all backers of Maoyan—are certainly looking for potential gains while the movie entertainment industry in China grows. Meituan-Dianping, Tencent, and Enlight Media did not respond to Crunchbase News for comment.

According to China Money Network, the Maoyan-Weiying merger ceded 43 percent of the Chinese online ticketing market to the combined entity. The new company has greatly diminished Tencent’s primary competitor Alibaba and its competing investment into Taopiaopiao, which only has 16 percent market share.

With this high-value IPO, Tencent, along with Meituan and Enlight Media, could further increase its stake in the movie entertainment industry in China.

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