More Chinese Power Players Jump Into E-Commerce

With the Alibaba IPO mere days away, some of the other most influential forces in Chinese business see it as an opportunity to try and stake their claim to a big E-Commerce chunk—before Alibaba’s public financing makes it an even more powerful rival.

“The Dalian Wanda Group, the Chinese real estate, cinema and retail conglomerate controlled by the billionaire Wang Jianlin, announced on Friday (Aug. 29) that it would enter the E-commerce industry in an $800 million partnership with Baidu and Tencent, two of China’s biggest Internet companies,” the New York Times reported.

The report said Wanda would end up about 70 percent of the shares of a firm to be based in Hong Kong and to be called Wanda E-Commerce. Both Tencent and Baidu would each control about 15 percent of the company. The initial investment is worth about $811 million. “There’s no true online-to-offline platform in China, and in this situation, everyone’s chances are equal,” Wang said, according to the Times report.

The trio will initially build their plans atop the 107 malls and department stores owned by Wanda “by cross-marketing promotions and memberships to the hundreds of millions of people who use online search, social networking and payment processing services provided by Baidu and Tencent,” The Times said.