Netflix recently agreed to a deal with Baidu’s iQiyi – a top video portal in China with nearly 500 million monthly viewers to give its programming a presence on Chinese soil. For now, though, Netflix is focused on closing similar distribution deals for Mainland China. It previously licensed out ‘House of Cards’ to video service Sohu, before regulators pulled it from China, but its agreement with iQiyi is likely to greatly increase its exposure in China.
iQiyi, which is owned by search engine giant Baidu, recently raised $1.5 billion to pursue new content and build out its Netflix-subscription service. The company began with an ad-supported model, but it is transitioning towards subscriptions like other rivals.
