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China : CHINAS Wanda intends $800m e-commerce JV with Baidu, Tencent [TendersInfo (India)](TendersInfo (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) China's Wanda Group, managed by the country's richest man, is joining Internet giants Baidu and Tencent to establish an e-commerce platform costing more than $800 million. The 3 Chinese companies will in the beginning spend 5 billion yuan ($813 million) in the project, Wanda chairman Wang Jianlin stated in a news conference in Shenzhen, adding their total funding could reach 20 billion yuan within 5 years. He added that Wanda will own a 70 percent stake in the joint venture, whereas Baidu and Tencent will take 15 percent each. China's online shopping market is dominated by Alibaba, the Internet behemoth that is planning a huge US flotation, however Wanda denied the new platform was planned to challenge existing e-commerce operators. A Wanda statement said that the new entity focuses to integrate Wanda's offline retail business with search, location and communication services offered by Baidu and Tencent to build an online-to-offline (O2O) platform. Wang is China's richest man with a net worth of $16 billion and owns 75 department stores, 85 shopping plazas and 51 five-star hotels, as per to publisher Forbes. His private conglomerate bought US cinema chain AMC in 2012 and previous year purchased British yacht maker Sunseeker. Baidu runs a Chinese version of Google whereas Tencent owns the country's most popular messaging app WeChat, which had 438 million monthly active users as of June. Wang said, "O2O could be the biggest cake in the e-commerce area but we haven't seen any single O2O platform," at the news conference . "In that regard, there's an equal opportunity for all." Wanda anticipates the venture to attract more than 40 million customers this year, and surpass 100 Million next year. (c) 2014 Euclid Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |