ahsingjai
08-12-2005, 01:18 AM
Aug. 11, 2005, 9:04PM
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/tech/news/3307197
Yahoo pays $1 billion for bigger China stake
ONLINE COMMERCE
U.S. Internet leader buys 40% of Alibaba.com
By JOE MCDONALD
Associated Press
BEIJING - Yahoo is paying $1 billion in cash for a 40 percent stake in China's biggest online commerce firm, Alibaba.com, strengthening the ties that international companies are forging in the world's second-largest Internet market.
Yahoo said it will merge its China subsidiaries into Alibaba as part of Thursday's deal, the biggest in a flurry of investments by foreign Internet firms eager for access to China's soaring number of Web users, now pegged at 100 million.
"This is Yahoo getting much bigger in China," Daniel Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer, said at a news conference in Beijing with Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
Alibaba runs a Web site that matches foreign buyers with Chinese wholesale suppliers, plus the popular consumer auction site Taobao.com, which competes with the Chinese subsidiary run by eBay, the world's top online auction company.
Rosensweig said the alliance creates an entity with assets to compete across the full range of Internet businesses — online commerce, e-mail and search engines. He expects China to become the world's biggest Internet market within five years.
The deal extends Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo's strategy of breaking into Asian markets by connecting with strong local partners. Yahoo and its Asian partners are now major forces in China, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, said Porter Erisman, Alibaba's vice president for international relations.
"This is really probably the knockout blow for eBay in China," he said. "This is going to make it hard for eBay to win in Asia."
EBay, which bought the Chinese auction portal Eachnet for $180 million in 2003, rejected suggestions that the Yahoo-Alibaba tie-up was a threat. EBay's share of China's auction market is 65 percent, according to Shanghai iResearch. TaoBao had 29 percent in 2004.
"It's business as usual for us," said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy in San Jose, Calif.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/tech/news/3307197
Yahoo pays $1 billion for bigger China stake
ONLINE COMMERCE
U.S. Internet leader buys 40% of Alibaba.com
By JOE MCDONALD
Associated Press
BEIJING - Yahoo is paying $1 billion in cash for a 40 percent stake in China's biggest online commerce firm, Alibaba.com, strengthening the ties that international companies are forging in the world's second-largest Internet market.
Yahoo said it will merge its China subsidiaries into Alibaba as part of Thursday's deal, the biggest in a flurry of investments by foreign Internet firms eager for access to China's soaring number of Web users, now pegged at 100 million.
"This is Yahoo getting much bigger in China," Daniel Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer, said at a news conference in Beijing with Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
Alibaba runs a Web site that matches foreign buyers with Chinese wholesale suppliers, plus the popular consumer auction site Taobao.com, which competes with the Chinese subsidiary run by eBay, the world's top online auction company.
Rosensweig said the alliance creates an entity with assets to compete across the full range of Internet businesses — online commerce, e-mail and search engines. He expects China to become the world's biggest Internet market within five years.
The deal extends Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo's strategy of breaking into Asian markets by connecting with strong local partners. Yahoo and its Asian partners are now major forces in China, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, said Porter Erisman, Alibaba's vice president for international relations.
"This is really probably the knockout blow for eBay in China," he said. "This is going to make it hard for eBay to win in Asia."
EBay, which bought the Chinese auction portal Eachnet for $180 million in 2003, rejected suggestions that the Yahoo-Alibaba tie-up was a threat. EBay's share of China's auction market is 65 percent, according to Shanghai iResearch. TaoBao had 29 percent in 2004.
"It's business as usual for us," said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy in San Jose, Calif.