California-headquartered American toy giant Mattel announced a deal reached with China's Alibaba Group.
Combining Mattel's brand awareness and professional technologies in the global toy market with Alibaba's massive data and knowledge about Chinese consumers, the new strategic cooperation is expected to reshape Chinese parents' understanding about toy products.
Financial terms of the deal were not released.
Mattel said in a statement that Alibaba's knowledge about Chinese consumers will help Mattel make targeted market and product strategies. With its 440 million active buyers on Alibaba's e-commerce platforms, Alibaba will help Mattel meet Chinese consumers' growing and ever-changing demands for toys.
As a part of the strategic cooperation, Mattel will not only sell its products via Alibaba's Tmall.com, but also will use Alibaba's media ecosystem to develop and promote learning resources and educational contents to help parents and their children achieve more by playing toys.
In addition, Mattel will work with Alibaba's artificial intelligence unit to develop new innovative products. The first batch of such products will be released in mid-2017.