China’s Tianya.cn To Expand Overseas Markets After Google Purchase

Chinese Internet community website Tianya.cn has announced that it completed a buy-back of a stake previous held by Google, which invested in Tianya.cn in 2007, and the company now plans to start expanding into the overseas markets by opening offices in Singapore and the U.S. in the first half of 2011.

Before the stake buy-back, Google reportedly owned less than 10% stake in Tianya.cn. No financial details about the deal yet has been disclosed.

Xing Ming, chairman and chief executive officer of Tianya.cn, said that at present about 20% traffic of Tianya.cn is from overseas visitors. The company plans to open new offices in Singapore and the U.S., so as to expand into Southeast Asia and North America.

Tianya.cn has kept a low profile of its financial operation. Since its founding, the company merely gained about CNY10 million by financing, and its investors are reportedly Legend Capital and Zero2IPO Ventures.

Google and Tianya.cn once jointly launched two products on Tianya.cn. However, after Google left the Chinese mainland market, it stopped technical support to the two products. The products are currently operated by Tianya.cn independently.