Yahoo buys US$1 billion stake in Alibaba (AP) Updated: 2005-08-11 15:29
Alibaba was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, who has become one of China's most
promiment Internet entrepreneurs. The company is based in the eastern Chinese
city of Hangzhou, southwest of Shanghai.
Alibaba runs both Chinese- and English-language auction
sites serving foreign companies looking for Chinese wholesale suppliers and
individual Chinese buyers and sellers.
News of the deal comes just days after an initial stock offering in the
United States by another Chinese online firm, search engine Baidu.com, set off a
frenzy of buying. Its shares soared more than 350 percent in their first day of
trading Friday before declining slightly this week.
The Chinese government said last month that the number of people online in
China had reached 103 million -- the second-biggest population of Web users
after the United States.
But Chinese online commerce is still in its infancy and consumer spending is
low in a society where urban incomes average just US$1,000 (euro800) a
year.
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