Baidu prepares to enter film industry

"As an Internet search engine giant, Baidu has good resources and platforms to promote its productions as well as marketing campaigns," said Huang Qunfei, general manager of Beijing New Film Association Co Ltd, one of China's largest theater chains.

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Also, its adequate supply of capital makes a great advantage in the filmmaking sector, which involves high risk for investment returns, the industry analysts said.

The IT giant reported total revenues of $8.89 billion in the third quarter of last year, up 42.3 percent year-on-year, according to the company's financial reports.

Analysts also said it will be a boost to China's animation features production, which has lagged behind its Hollywood counterparts for a long time.

"But signs have shown that Chinese animated films are improving in quality thanks to the development of technologies and growing investment," said Liu Cuiping, a research manager at EntGroup Consulting, a Beijing-based entertainment industry consultancy.

Of the highest-grossing animation features last year, five domestic productions made it onto the top 10 list, with the most successful reaching fourth place, according to the EntGroup Consulting.

The US animated film The Croods topped the list with total ticket sales of 393.9 million yuan ($65 million), while The Mythical Ark: Adventures in Love & Happiness, the fourth-place domestic animated feature, took in only 124.9 million yuan in box office, statistics from EntGroup Consulting showed.

"There will be a growing trend in the industry for content producers to team up with Internet media operators, as more and more industry insiders have found that content production develops far behind the content distribution platforms," said Shao.

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