IQiyi has 100 million paid subscribers

IQiyi, one of China's biggest online streaming media platforms, had 100 million paid subscribers by last week, and thus is the first streaming media operator in China to do so, said Yang Xianghua, President of Membership & Overseas Business Group of iQiyi.

Yang attributed to the achievement to online drama series and reality shows.

In China, where users of online broadcast platforms once get used to enjoy free content, iQiyi launched its paid content format in 2011.

The market went through a few years' of lukewarm response until 2015 when season one of thriller drama The Lost Tomb went online via iQiyi.

The production, which attracted over 1 billion clicks, became the first major Chinese online series drama with a huge number of paid subscribers.

Meanwhile, Yang said that overseas users only comprise about 1 percent of its total number of subscribers. And that over 600 million subscribers of IQiyi still do not pay anything, leaving a large potential market to be developed.