E-commerce giant Alibaba will be rolling out its own online video streaming service to compete with similar Chinese sites, the company announced on Sunday. The Netflix-like service is expected to be available in China in two months.

Reuters reported that Alibaba will try to replicate the success currently being enjoyed by U.S. companies such as Netflix or HBO in the field of video on demand. 

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Alibaba's digital entertainment boss Patrick Liu told reporters at the Shanghai Film Festival that the Netflix-like service will be known as Tmall Box Office or TBO. Its video content will be sourced locally and internationally, according to The Verge.

Aside from buying contents for video streaming, Alibaba reportedly intends to produce its own films.  In January this year, the company announced that it hired one of China's famous directors for an upcoming film that Alibaba is producing.

If Alibaba intends to become the largest provider of online videos in China, then their service must be better than the ones offered by Tencent, Sohu (which is owned by Baidu) and other well-established Chinese internet companies that are already offering online videos in the country. 

Deadline.com reported that Netflix itself is trying to gain a foothold in the vast Chinese online market.  

Liu said that the goal is for TBO to become the Chinese version of HBO or Netflix. Alibaba is preparing to make that dream a reality.  In 2014, the company purchased 16.5 percent of Youku Tudou, the largest video sharing platform for video streaming in China.  This month, Youku secured a deal with Disney to market Marvel movies and television within the mainland.  In regards to size, Youku trails behind Youtube as the biggest video sharing platform.  China's online customers outnumber U.S. online customers by almost two to one. 

Revenues from TBO will be collected through subscriptions or pay-per-view basis.  At least 10 percent of the content will be shown for free, according to Liu.  Alibaba's strategy is to offer better and more content than its fiercest rival.

Chinese government regulators are reportedly not comfortable with internet companies offering too much foreign content.  Chinese video streaming sites are currently prohibited from showing American television series such as NCIS or The Big Bang Theory.

TagsTmall, Tmall box office, netflix, HBO, Jack Ma, TBO