Shares of Youku.com (NYSE: YOKU - News), China's largest online video site, are up 14% today after the company announced it has partnered with Warner Bros. to offer U.S. video-on-demand titles to Chinese internet users starting today.
The news is helping the Chinese Internet Stocks Index, which is up 3.2%. The agreement with Time Warner (NYSE: TWX - News) will be for three years and will offer 450 titles ranging from new releases to classics, according to Bloomberg. The company can now expand beyond revenue solely from advertising and enter into the paid service space. Youku accounted for 22% of China's online video adertising space, according to Analysys International, Bloomberg reported.
Youku CEO Victor Koo told Bloomberg, "We believe we're on a path to profitability as our revenue is growing at triple digits and basically our cost structure is increasing at a lower speed. At some point in time that will come together in a very nice way. We don't have a set time frame."