Yahoo Invests $1 Billion in China

The race for the Chinese Internet market has reached a new stage when Yahoo decided to invest $1 billion in the acquiring of 40% of Alibaba.com.

The Chinese government has recently announced that the number of Chinese Internet surfers has reached 103 million and that by the end of 2005, it will reach 120 million; in two years, China is expected to have more Internet surfers than America.

Despite this market's impressive potential, the Chinese e-commerce is still underdeveloped, the main reason being the population's low incomes.

With this acquisition, Yahoo is becoming the most important American investor on the Chinese Internet market. Alibaba.com was founded by Jack Ma and it currently operates several Chinese auctioning sites, which have both English and Chinese section.

Yahoo also bought last year the Chinese search engine 3721.com, Baidu.com's main rival, which listed at the American stock exchange market, becoming in this way the most spectacular debut since the dot.com era.

Yahoo and Alibaba.com also become the competitors of the well-known auction site, eBay.