14 DAY TRIAL // The Chinese Internet market is already home to several giants. They may have little recognition outside of China, but they boast huge audiences there.
But, while it's still early days in the Chinese online market, consolidation, the mark of a healthy market, for better and for worse, is already happening.
Case in point, Alibaba, the ecommerce giant, has bought a significant share in web giant Sina Corp's Weibo, one of the local Twitter clones.
Sina Weibo has a huge number of users and is massively popular in China. While it started out as a Twitter clone, it's now more like a traditional social network. It also has some 400 million users, roughly twice as many as Twitter.
Alibaba Group bought 18 percent of Sina Weibo for $586 million (€448 million), giving it a valuation of $3 billion (€2.3 billion).
"Weibo and Alibaba's e-commerce platforms are natural partners. Together we provide a unique proposition not only to existing online merchants, but also to individuals or businesses," Charles Chao, chairman and CEO of Sina, said.
"We believe that this strategic alliance helps to create a stronger Weibo. It affirms our view of the vitality and importance of social media in unleashing value in e-commerce activities," Alibaba founder, former CEO and current Chairman Jack Ma said.
The two companies are also forging an alliance which should result in their products, specifically Weibo and the Taobao ecommerce site, getting more integrated. The alliance is expected to generate roughly $380 million (€290 million) in combined revenue. Sina recently forged an alliance with Baidu, the Chinese search giant.
"The two companies will cooperate in the areas of user account connectivity, data exchange, online payment and online marketing, among other things, and will explore new business models for social commerce based on the interactions of the hundreds of millions of users on Weibo and on Alibaba's e-commerce platforms," the two companies said.