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Alibaba invests in Taobao

By Tuo Yannan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-09 09:29

Taobao, one of China's largest consumer e-commerce companies, yesterday announced that its parent company, Alibaba Group, will invest 5 billion yuan ($733.34 million) over the next five years to expand its e-commerce platform for vendors and customers.

The first portion of the fund will be injected into Taobao at the end of the year.

Taobao will continue to offer its services for free to buyers and individual sellers for at least three years.

Since its founding in 2003, Taobao has created an e-commerce platform with more than 1 million merchants and 80 million registered customers. In addition, it accommodates a host of third-party service providers in payments, logistics and verification, and a network of 400,000 Web publishers in its affiliate marketing program.

Taobao is set to open a technology platform to independent software vendors (ISVs) to develop applications for Taobao's user base, including advanced product display and special visual effects.

According to China IntelliConsulting Corp, a market survey and industry research company, 33 percent of China's Internet users have shopped online and 76 percent of these users have purchased items on Taobao.

Taobao President Jonathan Lu said: "The 5 billion yuan investment in the Taobao ecosystem demonstrates our long-term confidence in the Chinese economy, optimism for China's domestic consumption and commitment to creating job opportunities for entrepreneurs who harness the power of the Taobao marketplace.

"Given the rapid growth of Internet use in China, we expect online shopping will become a mainstream Internet application in the near future."