Content will drive payment

It will take a long time to cultivate a market for subscription-based online video services in China, according to a report published by the China Internet Network Information Center in March.

By the end of 2011, there were 325 million Chinese users of online video services, but most are still only just getting into the habit of paying for such services on a regular basis.

Those who actively pay to view movies online account for only 1.5 percent of the total number of online video service users. In 2011, just 7.6 percent of users had paid for online video services, and 73.5 percent of them had only paid once or twice. Among those who paid, 47.9 percent said they had done so to access a wider variety of content, while 34.6 percent said they had no alternative, because they were unable to find pirated versions of the movies they wanted to watch online or download for free, said the report.