Singtel partners leading Chinese online literature platform

China Literature, an online literature platform in China, has partnered with Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel), the Asian communications technology group, to collaborate in online literature services and content platform businesses in Southeast Asia.

Both companies will jointly leverage their unique strengths to achieve greater business synergies, tapping on China Literature's position as a leading online literature platform and Singtel's digital and payment capabilities and combined reach of over 690 million mobile customers.

China Literature and Singtel have announced that the two parties will cooperate in areas including content co-production, licensing and distribution, marketing and promotional activities and digital payment services. This will pave the way for users to access and subscribe to content from China Literature and its global content creation platform, Webnovel, on Singtel's digital applications such as its Dash mobile wallet. Meanwhile, Singtel's digital payment services like Dash and direct carrier billing will be integrated with China Literature's digital applications to facilitate payments for paid content.

Wu Wenhui, Co-CEO of China Literature stated, "From the cultivation of original literature to the development of IP derivatives, the online literature industry continues to create high-quality cultural products around the world. Southeast Asia is one of the key markets for online literature and Singapore is a confluence of Eastern and Western cultures.

"The strategic cooperation between China Literature and Singtel marks a new chapter of synergetic development of online literature in Southeast Asia. Looking to the future, China Literature and Singtel will leverage their respective advantages in content and platform, further promote cross-border integration of culture content, and explore potentials of new products and forms for online literature."

Arthur Lang, CEO of Singtel's International Group commented, "We've made quality content central to our strategy to build up a digital ecosystem of services across the region as our customers love great entertainment. One way we are doing so is through partnerships in new forms of content. Having recently introduced gaming, e-sports, mixed martial arts, we now look forward to bringing online literature to our customers, particularly Millennials who enjoy user-generated content.

"Our collaboration with China Literature will further our efforts to drive user engagement and build communities with our digital apps and services. We hope to jointly grow online literature in the region and explore opportunities in a wide range of media formats and content delivery."

The partnership will also cover areas such as support for original content, and nurturing of writers, translators and editors, to enhance the development of quality content in Southeast Asia. Both parties will explore content adaptation, production and promotional activities on Singtel's video platforms.

Online literature content spanning themes such as martial arts, fantasy and video games has been growing in popularity in Southeast Asia. Popular titles such as Nirvana in Fire (琅琊榜) and Ever Night (将夜) have been in demand in Southeast Asia book stores, while intellectual property (IP)-adapted TV series such as Legend of Fuyao (扶搖) have been well-received. At present, China Literature has nearly 10,000 writers in Southeast Asia, while the number of translators in the region accounts for over 70% of the company's total overseas translators.

China Literature owns nine major brands. QQ Reading, a unified mobile content aggregation and distribution platform, is the flagship. China Literature's shareholder and strategic partner, Tencent, provides the company with exclusive content distribution access via its mobile and Internet products, including Mobile QQ, QQ Browser, Tencent News, Weixin Reading and Tencent Video. The company also has channels beyond the Tencent platforms via preinstalling apps on handset partners such as OPPO, Huawei and VIVO, as well as licensing content to third-party partners such as Baidu, Sogou, JD.com and Xiaomi Duokan. 

Singtel provides services from communication and technology services to infotainment to both consumers and businesses. For consumers, Singtel delivers services including mobile, broadband and TV. For businesses, Singtel offers a complementary array of workforce mobility solutions, data hosting, cloud, network infrastructure, analytics and cyber-security capabilities. The group has a presence in Asia, Australia and Africa and reaches over 690 million mobile customers in 21 countries.