Will it work for Chinese ticketing giant to expand its business to streaming content amid COVID-19 c

<?xml:namespace prefix="o" />Chinese largest movie ticketing app Maoyan attempted to expand its business to movie distributions on internet channels by launching a project during the ongoing five-day-long May Day holiday.

Testing the waters, the ticketing giant worked with a local film studio to stream five free movies, as well as live-streaming movies' commentary from KOLs. The first five movies are all high-ranked imports, like See You Up There, Woman at War, Never Look Away, and The Keeper. 

This latest attempt to prompt growth of China's hardest-hit film industry amid the COVID-19 epidemic, it is still too early to make a conclusion that this gambit will work or not.

But with only one month counting down to the possible reopening of China's thousands of cinemas on June, it is clear that Maoyan isn't only planning for now, but also considering it as a chance to penetrate into online distributions in the long run. 

The sudden outbreak of the novel coronavirus caught the whole industry unprepared. It's estimated to cause a loss of over 30 billion yuan ($4.25 billion) to China through the year, the world's second largest film market with nearly 70,000 screens. 

Amid the virus crisis, more and more Chinese studios have chosen to release their upcoming titles on Chinese streaming sites, hoping to stave of the hemorrhage of profits. However, for cinemas and ticketing platforms like Maoyan, it seems little can be done to survive the crisis. 

Just like most businesses in China, and even in the world, going online has proven common sense during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

When the situation in China improves and life retunes somewhat back to normal with people begin coming out, cinemas will reopen soon. But it is still far too early to see when the film industry will recover since streaming content is becoming a thing that people are getting to used. Moreover, businesses that dominate the whole industry including Maoyan are weighing in.