Baidu’s iQiyi said its paid streaming subscribers have reached five million as of June 15, representing an annual increase of 765%.
“The success of iQiyi's paid subscription model demonstrates the strong demand of Chinese audience for online video platforms with high-quality content,” said Yu Gong, founder and CEO of iQiyi.
The CEO said users’ willingness to pay for content reflects the huge opportunity and potential for iQiyi and the online video market in China.
“Most of iQiyi's users were born after the 1980s and understand the value of content," said Xianghua Yang, SVP of iQiyi. “With five million paid members, iQiyi is the industry leader in terms of paid subscribers. However, this is still a small portion of our over 500 million users, and we expect that the future conversion rate to paid members could be substantial.”
iQiyi's paid subscription provides a wide range of premium content to members. In 2014, iQiyi hosted over 60% of the movies played in cinemas in China.
Over 80% of movies whose box office income exceeded 100 million renminbi in China in 2014 can be found on iQiyi, along with over 400 Internet-only movies.
iQiyi intends to continue providing more domestic and international content to members. It also plans to acquire about 1,000 Hollywood titles this year.