Youku Partners With Hollywood on Premium Content

BEIJING, Jan.4, 2011/PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Youku.com Inc. (NYSE: YOKU), China's leading Internet television company, announced today that it has partnered with a major Hollywood studio on transactional on-demand streaming for one of the hottest films through Youku Premium.

The movie Inception from Warner Bros, one of the top films of 2010, is now available on Youku Premium, Youku's beta on-demand paid video service. In addition to online on-demand broadcast rights to Inception, Youku also has online resale rights for the film. Youku Premium was launched in beta in early 2010, enabling users to watch advertisement-free premium content, such as high-definition movies.

Youku has set up a dedicated page for Inception (http://store.youku.com/inception) where paying Youku users can not only watch the hit film anywhere, and on any internet-enabled device, but also interact with other users to comment, share other film recommendations, or discuss the film's famously twisty plot.

In addition to top-grossing films, Youku Premium also features more than 10,000 hours of lectures and self-study materials offered in partnership with ChinaEDU, Crystal Education, and other partners. Wherever possible, titles are offered in high definition.

"Through building long-term partnerships with copyright holders and communicating with our media partners, Youku Premium is creating a whole new way for people to find and watch the content they want, when they want it," said Youku founder and CEO Victor Koo.

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) recently announced that China was home to 450 million Internet users, and with the rapid ascent of broadband Internet access, that number continues to grow.

About Youku

Youku.com Inc. is China's leading Internet television company. Our mission is to become the primary source of video content for Chinese internet users across all Internet-enabled devices.

Youku offers a combination of licensed professional content, user-generated content and self-produced web video content. According to iResearch, Youku attracts approximately 203 million monthly unique visitors from homes and offices and 56 million monthly unique visitors from Internet cafes in September 2010. Youku has a 40% share of total user time spent viewing online videos among Chinese internet users during the second quarter of 2010, according to iResearch. Youku was launched in December 2006.

SOURCE Youku.com