Bilibili targeting more collaboration with e-commerce advertisers to drive growth at video-sharing platform

China’s video-sharing platform Bilibili has added cross-platform links to Alibaba Group Holding’s online shopping platform Taobao in the latest attempt to pull in more revenue from its 100 million daily active users (DAUs).

Bilibili, which is still in the red since going public on Nasdaq in 2018, has posted Taobao Live adverts on its homepage, which allow users to jump directly to the shopping platform by clicking on the link. Alibaba owns the Post.

Last month, Bilibili also collaborated with Pinduoduo, allowing its users to move to the budget shopping platform by using coupons provided by PDD. Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has also posted ads on Bilibili’s homepage, according to local media reports.

Bilibili narrowed its net loss by 36 per cent to 4.8 billion yuan (US$641 million) in 2023 from a year earlier, according to an earnings release last week. Net revenue was up 3 per cent to 22.5 billion yuan.

Bilibili’s ads business pulled in 6.4 billion yuan for the year, up 27 per cent, and the company attributed the growth mainly to improved “product offerings and enhanced advertising efficiency”.

Bilibili is popular among Chinese millennials and Gen Z, with DAUs exceeding 100 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. The daily time spent on the platform by users remains at over 95 minutes on average, said Rui Chen, chairman and chief executive officer of Bilibili, in an earnings call with analysts last Thursday.

The Shanghai-based platform wants to monetise those eyeballs via products and collaboration with e-commerce advertisers.