More Possible China E-commerce Acquisitions For eBay

eBay reportedly expects its Greater China sales in 2011 to increase by between 30% and 40%, and the company will seek opportunities to acquire new assets to increase its market share in China.

According to reports in foreign media, Jay Lee, general manager for eBay Asia Pacific, said we will continue to seek proper opportunities, but the prices should be reasonable. While the current Chinese market is a little overheated, Lee sad China has a large number of rich consumers. They not only sell products on eBay, but also buy on eBay. In 2010, eBay’s sales in Greater China saw a record high of over USD4 billion. The company hopes to attract more Chinese netizens, depending on its 97 million active users worldwide and about 100 million PayPal users.

In 2003, eBay acquired the Chinese auction site EachNet. In 2006, eBay announced the establishment of a joint venture with Tom Group and the business of EachNet was taken over by the new company. This move was recognized as eBay’s withdrawal from the Chinese market. According to Lee, the company’s contract with Tom will expire later this year and no further decision has been made yet about a renewal.

At the same time, the company continued to implement mergers and acquisitions in other markets this year, including the deals with GSI Commerce, Zong and Magneto.

Statistics from the market analysis firm Analysys International show that in the second quarter of 2011, China’s e-commerce trade value increased by 65% year-on-year to CNY192.9 billion, which was about USD30 billion. Of which, the B2C business increased by 173% to CNY54.3 billion.