Yahoo buys US$1 billion stake in Alibaba
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-08-11 22:01

Yahoo first entered the China market in late 2003 by purchasing keyword search firm 3721 Network Software for 120 million dollars.

Its latest venture will better position it to compete with the likes of Google and other technology companies which have been moving aggressively to invest in China's fast-growing Internet sector.

China has a population of 1.3 billion but less than 10 percent of them are online.

The Silicon Valley-based company's co-founder Jerry Yang said their latest move cemented his company's long-term commitment to the world's fastest growing major economy.

"We have always had a long-term commitment to China and even more to the development of its Internet industry," he said in a joint statement.

"We are confident that Yahoo is putting its resources behind the right management team which operates according to similar values as we do."

Its purchase comes a week after investors showed their hunger for Chinese Internet companies, with leading Chinese search engine Baidu's listing on the NASDAQ exchange sparking a buying frenzy.

Baidu's shares surged 364 percent on the first day of trading -- the largest one-day rise for a US initial public offering in the past four years.

Ma said he plans to build the Yahoo search engine into a household name in China.

"We want to make Yahoo China into a brand that everyone in China knows, to allow Chinese people to enjoy a top global search engine. This is my goal for next year," Ma said.

He added that his company would also go public at some stage, but did not specify a date.

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