Consumer complaints during the first quarter of 2015 for Internet shopping increased by 174.4% year-on-year to 24,100 cases, according to statistics published by State Administration for Industry and Commerce of China. The State Administration revealed that China’s nationwide industry and commerce administrative units received a total of 1.701 million consumer complaints, reports and inquiries in […]
Chinese lifestyle service platform 58.com announced a merger with its classified information listings competitor Ganji.com. According to the agreement, 58.com will acquire an approximately 43.2% fully diluted equity stake in Ganji.com for a combination of share consideration and cash, including approximately 34 million newly issued ordinary shares and USD412.2 million in cash. Meanwhile, the two […]
Thousands of Chinese websites will soon be marked unsafe by Google’s Chrome browser. Adam Langley, a Google security engineer, says, “On Friday, March 20th, we became aware of unauthorized digital certificates for several Google domains. The certificates were issued by an intermediate certificate authority apparently held by a company called MCS Holdings. This intermediate certificate […]
BMG, a music business subsidiary of Germany’s Bertelsmann Group, has signed an exclusive online music distribution agreement for the Chinese market with Alibaba. Under the agreement, Alibaba will become the exclusive online distributor of BMG music and artists in the Chinese market. Alibaba will sell those products on its own platforms such as Xiami.com. In […]
Chinese and Russian technology companies plan to jointly launch an e-commerce platform which aims to promote the cross-border trading between China and Russia. Russian online payment system Yandex.Money will start handling payment services for China online payment platform TradeEase. This project is expected to be launched in summer of 2015 and its turnover is expected […]
Amazon China Z.cn announced that its official flagship store on Tmall.com has started trial operation and will be formally launched in April 2015. This flagship store will initially provide Chinese netizens with directly procured imported products, including shoes, food, wine, kitchenware, and toys. Products sold on Amazon’s Tmall flagship store will be delivered via Amazon […]
Hong Kong’s geographic proximity to mainland China belies the gulf in business practices, Internet laws, and access that Twitter will find between the refined transparency of Hong Kong and the nuances and perils of the mainland Chinese Internet sector. Twitter announced plans this week to open an office in Hong Kong. Though the company says […]
American game developer Zynga announced that the company will close its office in Beijing. Zynga announced the decision while publishing its performance report for the fourth quarter of 2014. The company said that they will cut the 71 jobs in Beijing office and the related expense of USD7 million will be included in the first […]
How much is a good website domain name worth these days? An insider from Qihoo 360 confirmed that the company has invested USD17 million, which is about CNY110 million, to acquire the top-level domain 360.com. This top-level domain was previously owned by telecom carrier Vodafone. At present, the domain has directed to Qihoo 360’s search […]
Alibaba and its executives may feel the sting of American jurisprudence as law firms line up for possible class action lawsuits in the United States against the Chinese e-commerce company. At least five law firms so far have expressed intentions to commence class actions against Alibaba. For example, a complain from Robbins Geller Rudman & […]
Facebook will reportedly set up a new office in Taiwan which will be engaged in platform advertising sales.
Kingsoft Corporation Limited signed a joint operation framework agreement for games with Huaduo Group.
Crushing masses of people, airborne viruses, and smelly air are not the only threats for travelers on Beijing’s subway system as a hacker has revealed a new technology exploit that can bring havoc to the capital city’s underground transportation maze.
China’s Suning announced plans to increase its strategic investment in PPTV, a Chinese video website. At the same time, its board of directors appointed Fan Zhijun, executive president for Suning in East China, as chairman of the management committee at PPTV. Suning said that over the past year of transition, the strategic integration of PPTV […]
If China’s top Internet search engine controls Chinese literature the way it delivers Internet search results, be prepared for Baidu.com to censor, misrepresent, and deliver books to Chinese readers in a way only a book-burner could love. Baidu is now extending its government-influenced Internet monopoly into the Chinese literature sector. Baidu Literature announced its establishment […]
Chinese classified information website 58.com announced the launch of a new housekeeping service brand named “58 Daojia” and appointed Chen Xiaohua, chief strategy officer of 58.com, as chief executive officer of “58 Daojia”. 58 Daojia provides location-based service booking, on-site services, and online payment and reviews. This project was initially launched in July 2014. Currently, […]
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi announced that the company plans to invest USD10 million to purchase shares of Youku-Tudou from the secondary market, which will enable the playing of Youku-Tudou contents on Xiaomi devices. Xiaomi will also buy Youku-Tudou shares from the open market. The two parties will make a joint investment of an unknown sum […]
Chinese Internet portal NetEase.com announced that the company will officially close its blog services and recommends users to move their blogs to LOFTER, a microblog service at NetEase. According to NetEase, the blogs moving to LOFTER will maintain the same contents. Meanwhile, the company will completely shut down its blog services in the coming weeks. […]
Chen Yizhou, chief executive officer of Renren, says the company is planning to sell some non-core businesses to improve their profitability and they are also considering investment and expansion opportunities in America and Hong Kong. Chen revealed during an interview with local Chinese media that under the current model it is hard for the company […]
Chinese B2C e-commerce website JD.com and China Post Group have reached a strategic deal to jointly develop an e-commerce platform targeting cities below third-tier size in China. With the cooperation, JD.com will provide various products, including PCs, digital products, home and kitchen supplies, and cosmetics, for China Post’s “people-benefit project”. Those products will reach 13 […]
Xueqiu.com, a Chinese social investment website, has completed its third round of financing of USD40 million with investors including Renren.com and Morningside Ventures. Xueqiu’s products include its website and an application for smart devices. Officially launched in November 2011, Xueqiu has been providing data inquiries, information, and interactive communications services to Chinese investors. Its services […]
Tencent Holdings Limited is investing USD70 million into Ting Ting Group, the owner of Chinese online healthcare service community DXY.cn. Tencent gains a minority equity stake of DXY on a fully diluted and as converted basis, and the deal is expected to close soon. DXY plans to invest the capital into developing healthcare products for […]
Microsoft will officially close its instant messaging service MSN in China on October 31, 2014. Microsoft already shut down MSN services worldwide in March 2013, with the exclusion of the Chinese mainland market; and the company started promoting its other communications product Skype. According to Microsoft, Chinese MSN services will be shut down on October […]
Chinese classified information website Ganji.com announced its latest executive team structure, covering strategy, sales, business development, and marketing. Former Alibaba executive Chen Guohuan has been appointed chief operating officer of Ganji.com; former Taobao executive Zhu Xiaoping has been appointed vice president of Ganji.com’s channel department; and former Alibaba B2B business unit executive Wang Zhenghong has […]
During the first half of 2014, the number of adults using the mobile Internet in Taiwan reached 9.87 million. The Taiwan Network Information Center published a report on the broadband network usage in Taiwan in 2014, which said that over the past three years, Taiwan’s Internet growth rate maintained a rate of over 70% and […]
American mobile game developer Kabam announced that the company has gained a USD120 million investment from Alibaba Group. Kabam said in a statement that the funding will help the company realize growth and Alibaba will assign an executive to join the board of directors at Kabam. Kabam’s valuation reached over USD1 billion during this round […]
Even though its founder pledged to avoid online gaming because his son developed an online game addiction, Alibaba has now launched its own cloud gaming platform. Cloud gaming at Alibaba aims to merge game interaction and data operation on cloud servers and transmit the real-time pictures back to the TV screens of users. With this […]
Chinese search engine company Baidu announced in Tianjin that the company’s developer start-up center in the city has been formally established. This is Baidu’s newest regional start-up center following those already operational in Chengdu and Xiamen. This new Tianjin Baidu developer start-up center is located in Hongqiao district. With an office area of over 3,000 […]
