Alibaba may have a new challenger, and it would be backed by China's three wealthiest men.
China's Dalian Wanda Group, led by the country's richest billionaire Wang Jianlin, plans to invest $813 million (5 billion yuan) into launching an e-commerce platform with
The joint-venture, which could be announced as soon as Friday, would combine the online advantage of Alibaba's two biggest tech rivals with the offline resources of Wanda Group, one of the country's largest property-and-entertainment conglomerates. According to Chinese media reports, the new platform would allow users to use Baidu's maps and data to access Wanda's sprawling real estate empire in China, which ranges from shopping malls to movie theaters. At the same time, it would seek to take advantage of Tencent's online payment service Tenpay to get customers pay for offline goods.
Wanda would own 70% of the new joint-venture, while Baidu and Tencent would each own 15%, according to the reports. Wang Jianlin, who has led Wanda's shopping sprees in recent years including the $2.6 billion acquisition of cinema chain AMC Entertainment Holdings, has shown interests in investing in China's fast-growing e-commerce over the past year. In Wanda's mid-year conference in July, Wang revealed that the company was planning to invest 5 billion yuan to launch an e-commerce platform and aimed to turn it profitable within three years.
But challenging Alibaba is easier said than done, as giant continues to achieve stellar growth. Sales in the second quarter rose 46% to $2.54 billion, and net income nearly tripled to $1.99 billion, according to its latest filing to the SEC ahead of its much-anticipated September IPO.
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