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Yahoo buys US$1 billion stake in Alibaba
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-08-11 22:01
Yahoo first entered the China market in late 2003 by purchasing keyword
search firm 3721 Network Software for 120 million dollars.
Its latest venture will better position it to compete with the likes of
Google and other technology companies which have been moving aggressively to
invest in China's fast-growing Internet sector.
China has a population of 1.3 billion but less than 10 percent of them are
online.
The Silicon Valley-based company's co-founder Jerry Yang said their latest
move cemented his company's long-term commitment to the world's fastest growing
major economy.
"We have always had a long-term commitment to China and even more to the
development of its Internet industry," he said in a joint statement.
"We are confident that Yahoo is putting its resources behind the right
management team which operates according to similar values as we do."
Its purchase comes a week after investors showed their hunger for Chinese
Internet companies, with leading Chinese search engine Baidu's listing on the
NASDAQ exchange sparking a buying frenzy.
Baidu's shares surged 364 percent on the first day of trading -- the largest
one-day rise for a US initial public offering in the past four years.
Ma said he plans to build the Yahoo search engine into a household name in
China.
"We want to make Yahoo China into a brand that everyone in China knows, to
allow Chinese people to enjoy a top global search engine. This is my goal for
next year," Ma said.
He added that his company would also go public at some stage, but did not
specify a date.
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