Eason Chan and Mayday are about to perform, Damai Entertainment rises first to show respect.

"When a company changes its name, it is often telling a new story."

Does this statement also apply to Damai Entertainment, which has hidden the label of "Alibaba's Cultural Flagship" and redefined itself under the name "Damai"?

After the strategic adjustment, Damai Entertainment is transitioning from a comprehensive entertainment platform covering the entire industry chain to a vertical service provider focused on "live entertainment + IP operations." Meanwhile, Beijing's Bird's Nest has recently hosted concerts by Sun Yanzi, Wang Leehom, and JJ Lin, with Eason Chan and Mayday also set to perform soon, making Damai Entertainment seemingly "overwhelmed" for the time being.

On July 17, Damai Entertainment (01060.HK) saw its stock price surge by over 9% intraday, with a cumulative increase of more than 130% over the past two months.

A closer look reveals that the strong stock performance may be a vote of confidence from the market in the company's strategic adjustment, but it also reflects a shift in consumer willingness to splurge on "two hours of happiness," driving a deeper transformation in China's entertainment industry toward "content, experience, and ecosystem." The market ceiling is also being gradually pushed higher.

Strategic Reset: From "Full Chain" to "Strong Scenarios," Damai's Focus Logic

It is well known that the former Alibaba Pictures Group was a full-chain entertainment platform centered on content and technology, covering content production, promotion and distribution, IP derivative licensing and commercial operations, cinema and entertainment event ticketing management, and internet data services.

Thus, its core business segments also revolved around content production, live entertainment, IP derivatives, technology applications, and international expansion.

Not long ago, alongside the rebranding from Alibaba Pictures to Damai Entertainment, the core business was further clarified and focused.

First, the focus shifted further toward the live entertainment-centric Damai business, as hinted by the new name "Damai Entertainment."

The 2025 fiscal year was the first full fiscal year after the merger with Damai, during which the Damai business experienced explosive growth, with segment revenue reaching RMB 1.23 billion, making it the group's most profitable segment and the undisputed strategic focus of Damai Entertainment.

This growth is driven by the sustained heating up of the offline performance market over the past two years. According to data released by the China Performance Industry Association in April 2024, the national performance market's total revenue in 2024 was RMB 79.629 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.61%. Of this, box office revenue accounted for RMB 57.954 billion, with other revenue at RMB 21.675 billion.

Damai covers all categories of performances, including concerts, music festivals, and theater, through six content brands (e.g., Mailive, Of Course There's Drama).

In the 2025 fiscal year, Damai served international artists such as Zhang Jie, Jay Chou, Sun Yanzi, and Ed Sheeran in large-scale concerts and deepened collaborations with venues in Hong Kong and Macau to consolidate its position. Additionally, Damai upgraded its computing power to ensure system stability during high-concurrency scenarios, with projects exceeding 100,000 concurrent ticket purchases per second increasing by 63% year-on-year.

Data shows that Damai's business has set records for high GMV growth for two consecutive years, maintaining its leading position in the performance ticketing market.

In terms of content production, Damai accelerated its layout in the performance content ecosystem, forming a matrix of six content brands—Mailive, Of Course There's Drama, Xiami Music Entertainment, Yizhan Hongtu, Cool Xiaomai, and Good Shows—covering core content tracks such as concerts, music festivals, theater, exhibitions, stand-up comedy, and children's plays. The influence of self-produced content is gradually becoming prominent.

Notably, the demand for such content has only grown stronger in 2025.

According to data from the Daolue Music Industry Research Institute, the total number of performances in May 2025 reached 330, a year-on-year increase of 20.9%; concert audiences in May totaled 4.484 million, up 23.2% compared to April 2024 (3.64 million); and total box office revenue in May reached RMB 3.333 billion, showing slight growth compared to the same period in 2024.

The number of national music festivals, audience numbers, and box office revenue also saw increases of around 40% compared to the previous year. From Sun Yanzi, Wang Leehom, and JJ Lin performing at Beijing's Bird's Nest to upcoming concerts by Eason Chan and Mayday, it is clear that the offline entertainment market will remain strong in the second half of the year.

IP Frontline: Scaling Back "Non-Core," Strengthening "Alibaba Fish" as the Main Engine

To better capitalize on the booming performance market, on June 25, 2025, Damai Entertainment (Alibaba Pictures) decided to shut down its wholly-owned trendy toy brand Jinli Naqu, based on market and operational considerations.

On the same day as announcing the scale-back, according to the Jiangsu Provincial Urban Football League's official account, the official ticketing channel for the July 5 match between Nanjing and Suzhou teams was the Damai app.

CITIC Securities pointed out that Damai becoming the official ticketing channel for the Jiangsu Super League's Nanjing-Suzhou match marks its entry into the regional sports event ticketing market, leveraging event traffic to expand its popularity among male users and complementing its female-dominated music performance market.

According to reports from Lighthouse and the China Performance Industry Association, female audiences accounted for 66.1% and 67.1% of large-scale concerts and music festivals in 2024, significantly higher than male audiences.

Indeed, the Jiangsu Super League has brought Damai higher traffic and public attention. For example, although ticket prices for the league are low, mostly ranging from RMB 10-20, attendance is high. The match between Changzhou and Nanjing teams broke attendance records, with 36,000 attendees, comparable to top-tier artist concerts, highlighting the high social attention for regional sports events like the Jiangsu Super League. With this experience, Damai is poised to secure ticketing agency rights for other regional sports events in the future.

The report noted that while sports ticketing currently accounts for only a low single-digit percentage of Damai's revenue, the popularity of events like the Jiangsu Super League and Guizhou Village BA suggests potential for future growth. It also expressed optimism about Damai's expansion in ticketing coverage, strengthening the user mindset of "buy tickets on Damai" and enhancing long-term growth prospects. While music performances remain highly prosperous, the platform is also expected to increase its market share in local performances, cultural tourism events, and sports events.

Regarding the adjustment of the Jinli Naqu brand in the IP frontline, the report stated that it would not affect the company's consumer-facing derivative business. On one hand, based on Damai Entertainment's IP licensing revenue of RMB 1.43 billion in the 2025 fiscal year, Jinli Naqu's revenue accounted for only a high single-digit percentage, and its closure would not significantly impact profits. In contrast, Alibaba Fish is the core of its IP licensing business, contributing the majority of revenue and EBITA.

On the other hand, scaling back Jinli Naqu does not mean abandoning direct-to-consumer IP derivatives.

Public records show that as early as October 2024, Damai Entertainment signed the Chiikawa IP, though it did not contribute significantly to performance in the previous fiscal year. However, according to Alibaba Fish's official account, Chiikawa's offline and online channels and SKUs continue to expand: a Chiikawa sushi-themed pop-up store opened in Shanghai on May 30, and SKUs in the brand's Tmall flagship store are increasing. Additionally, in May, Chiikawa collaborated with Thermos to launch co-branded water bottles.

Among other Alibaba Fish IPs, it was reported that from April to May this year, Sanrio and Pokémon had 23 and 5 external licensing projects, respectively. Alibaba Fish's offline and online activities for Sanrio will be rolled out soon: the Sanrio Festival will open at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Hall on August 2-3. In the third quarter, Damai Entertainment will also leverage the Taobao and Tmall platforms to host Sanrio Super Brand Day.

According to media reports, Sanrio's "Super Brand Day" in 2024 attracted over 30 Sanrio licensees, including TOPTOY, Razer, and Chow Sang Sang, with sales at Sanrio's official flagship store growing by over 600%, demonstrating the IP's strong vitality.

To date, Alibaba Fish has established a full-chain IP operation covering marketing planning, client development and maintenance, IP supervision, and legal management of intellectual property. Leveraging the Alibaba ecosystem's resources, it has built its own barriers and is poised to secure more IP partnerships.

JP Morgan previously noted that the stark difference in stock returns between Damai and Maoyan this year is largely due to Damai's active development in IP commercialization and offline event ticketing. Damai has transformed from a film industry representative like Maoyan into a more diversified IP and offline entertainment operator, leading to a valuation reassessment. The bank expects this to continue driving positive earnings adjustments and stock price increases.

The strong positive reaction in the secondary market also reflects widespread optimism about Damai Entertainment's post-adjustment strategic layout and focus. Over the past two months, Damai Entertainment's stock price has surged by over 1.3 times.

Signals of a Major Transformation in the Entertainment Industry

From a broader perspective, considering Damai Entertainment's unique leading position in the entertainment industry chain, its refocus on the offline performance market also carries signals of a major transformation in China's entertainment industry.

The State Council's "Several Measures on Further Cultivating New Growth Points and Boosting Cultural and Tourism Consumption" explicitly calls for "enriching cultural and entertainment products and developing trendy national products," a direction that aligns with Damai's strategy.

According to statistics, as of January 31, 2025, the number of enterprises in China's cultural and sports entertainment industry (covering sports events, film distribution, news publishing, artistic creation, and other segments) reached 2.0182 million, a year-on-year increase of 20.31%.

This growth is driven by stable increases in household income and a shift in lifestyle from "material satisfaction" to "spiritual satisfaction," making cultural and entertainment consumption a "new necessity." Damai's concert and sports event ticketing are direct beneficiaries of this shift, while its IP business stems from consumers' increased willingness to pay for "emotional value," as seen in the recent global popularity of Labubu.

Additionally, the integration of technology and culture is reshaping the entertainment landscape. Damai's computing power upgrades to ensure stable high-concurrency ticketing systems address "pain points in experience," while blockbusters like "Black Myth: Wukong" and "Chinese Mythology" demonstrate how AI and VR technologies are breaking boundaries in content creation.

Damai's "live entertainment + IP operations" model sits at the intersection of "technology empowerment" and "consumption upgrade"—the former providing efficiency support, the latter offering demand scenarios.

Can Damai continue to deliver on its growth expectations? The answer may lie in two variables: first, whether offline performances and sports events can sustain market penetration; and second, whether IP operations can transition from "traffic harvesting" to "long-term value accumulation."

One thing is certain: from 2024's "Black Myth: Wukong" and "Ne Zha" series to 2025's global Labubu craze and the widespread attention on the Jiangsu Super League, more players in the entertainment industry are recognizing the opportunities at hand.