YKSE, a ticket and movie industry solutions provider under Alibaba Pictures Group, announced that they will invest in Irish cinema data company Showtime Analytics and introduce Showtime's analysis experience, data model and data products into China to facilitate operations by cooperating with cinemas in China.

After investing in Showtime, YKSE will assign one representative in the board of directors of Showtime. The full amount of investment and ownership stake taken by YKSE was not released.

Headquartered in Dublin, Showtime focuses on providing data analytics and services to cinemas and the company offers decision-making support to cinema management via that data aggregation. It has clients in over 60 countries around the world and most of them are chain cinemas. Showtime can provide data analytics covering various areas of cinema management, including box office, attendance rates, goods sales, viewing crowds, and viewing trends.

Li Xiangxiong, general manager of YKSE, said that by relying on Showtime's data abilities and Alibaba's big data services, they will be able to provide more data products and services to Chinese cinemas. With the cooperation, they hope to create a new cinema data operation era in China.