Who owns Youku?
Youku is owned by Alibaba (Hong Kong, NYSE: BABA).[1]
Evidence: Alibaba Group Holding Limited Annual Report on Form 20-F filed 2026-05-20, SEC EDGAR, 20 May 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Key facts
- Current owner
- Alibaba Group Holding Limited verified
- Owner HQ
- 🇭🇰 Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- Origin
- 🇨🇳 China
- Category
- Internet & digital › Streaming & media › Streaming video
- Parent ticker
- NYSE: BABA
- Trademark registrant
- Youku Internet Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd (USPTO)
- Last verified
- · 2 sources
About Youku
Youku is an online long-form video platform in China that Alibaba lists among its businesses. Its page says it produces and distributes video through original production, joint production, rights acquisition, user-generated content, professionally generated content and live broadcast, and lets users search, view and share across multiple devices. The page does not give a founding date, so none is recorded here.
How often Alibaba names Youku in its annual report
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
Trademark record for Youku
The USPTO record for the Youku mark lists Youku Internet Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd as the owner of record (serial number 88839143). A trademark is often held by a group company rather than the listed parent, so the registrant's name can differ from the owner named above.[2]
Ownership timeline of Youku
Where Youku sits in Alibaba
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Alibaba ownership tree →
See the full Alibaba brand portfolio (14) →
Other brands owned by Alibaba
Alibaba controls 14 brands on Brandtree, 13 of them in internet & digital.
Also in internet & digital
Other brands in streaming video, and who owns them
The 36 brands in streaming video on Brandtree belong to 24 owners. The largest is AMC Networks, with 5.
About the owner: Alibaba
Alibaba is a publicly listed company headquartered in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, founded in 1999. Brandtree records 14 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: BABA.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Cayman Islands holding company that files annual reports on Form 20-F; the business address on its SEC record is in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, although its consumer platforms are run from China. Its own site says Alibaba.com, launched in 1999, was the first business of the group. It organises its businesses into China e-commerce, international digital commerce, cloud intelligence and other units. Lazada, Daraz, Ele.me and Alibaba Cloud are not listed as brands here because their country of origin is not stated on the group page or the product is not a consumer brand.
🇨🇳 Youku and other Chinese brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 319 brands that began in China. 39 of them (12%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, Youku among them.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of Youku?
The parent company of Youku is Alibaba, a publicly listed company headquartered in Hong Kong.
Is Youku Chinese or Hong Kong?
Youku originated in China, but it is owned today by Alibaba, which is headquartered in Hong Kong. So Youku is a Chinese-origin brand under Hong Kong ownership.
Is Youku still owned by Alibaba?
Yes. As of 6 October 2026, Youku is still owned by Alibaba. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (2) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] Alibaba Group Holding Limited Annual Report on Form 20-F filed 2026-05-20 — SEC EDGAR, SEC Form 20-F, published 20 May 2026; retrieved 4 October 2026.
- [2] USPTO: YOUKU, serial 88839143 — United States Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark registry; retrieved 6 October 2026.
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