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China Amazon latest Business & Financial news from Doug Young, the Expert on Chinese High Tech Market, (former Journalist and Chief editor at Reuters)

China: Room for How Many Amazons? 中国电商市场到底有多大？

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China’s e-commerce space seems to get noisier by the day, with about a half dozen companies vying to become the nation’s next Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) by launching a steady stream of new initiatives in recent months taking them into a dizzying array of new product areas, many far removed from their roots. But at the end of the day there may only be room for 2 or possibly 3 mega online retailers in the market, and we should expect to see many of these aggressively expanding players ultimately either merge with rivals, or more likely quietly shutter their online shops in the next 1 to 2 years as they feel the heat of excessive competition now gripping the market. The latest in the steady flow of new initiatives has Suning (Shenzhen: 002024), better known for its bricks-and-mortar shops selling home appliances and electronics, opening a wine shop this week on its fast-expanding e-commerce site. (English article) News of this new online direction actually first emerged last month, along with reports that Suning would also get into the even more unrelated business of online travel services. Suning is hardly the only one to be branching into all kinds of strange new directions these days in the online space. Its forays into wine and travel come as the country’s second largest e-commerce site, 360Buy, which also goes by the name of Jingdong Mall, has also embarked on its own series of strange initiatives far beyond its original focus as an online electronics seller. Earlier this year the company launched a new book-selling business, and more recently reports have emerged that it will also get into the somewhat unrelated real estate and travel services businesses. (previous post) Then there’s Dangdang (NYSE: DANG), China’s only publicly listed e-commerce company, which began life as an online book seller similar to Amazon. But also similar to Amazon, the company has recently expanded into a number of new directions, including a major tie-up with GOME (HKEx: 493), one of China’s top bricks-and-mortar electronics retailers, in a bid to enter the online market for electronics and home appliances. If all of this is starting to sound like everyone is stepping on everyone else’s turf, it’s because that indeed seems to be what’s happening, with apparently little or no regard for profits or focusing on strategic new areas to complement existing core businesses. Not to be outdone in all this, the nation’s leading e-commerce site TMall, owned by Alibaba, is reportedly gearing up to significantly beef up its presence in the electronics space by signing major names like Philips (Amsterdam: PHG), Lenovo (HKEx: 992) and LG Electronics (Seoul: 066570) to an expanded area in its online mall dedicated to the highly competitive space. Outside all this expansion by domestic names, US retailing giants Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Amazon itself are also aggressively building up their China presences, the former through its investments in another major site called Yihaodian and the latter through its Joyo platform purchased several years ago, which recently changed its name to Amazon China. The Chinese e-commerce market is certainly big and can support more than one major player, though I seriously doubt it can support all these big names now scrambling to get into just about any new area they can find. The broader e-commerce market itself was worth around 500 billion in 2010, meaning perhaps its now worth about $100 billion — certainly not a small sum but also not enough for all the companies now chasing that limited pot of dollars. At the end of the day, look for 2 or perhaps 3 of these big players to survive in the longer term, with profitable companies like TMall and ones with cash-rich backers like Amazon China and Yihaodian, standing the best chances for success. But even those companies may have to make major adjustments before the current situation stabilizes, bringing widespread pain to nearly everyone as players open and close new business areas before they find the right mix.

Bottom line: The recent rapid expansion of major e-commerce firms into new product areas is unsustainable, and will end with many failures before 2-3 players emerge after a coming cleanup.

Related postings 相关文章:

◙ Alibaba’s Tianmao Takes on Electronics 天猫发力家电市场

◙ Dangdang, GOME In New Alliance, More to Come 国美携手当当网 或开启类似合作序幕

◙ 360Buy Losing Focus With Travel Plan 京东商城涉足在线旅行服务业 偏离核心业务

 

Talks Swirls on Baidu’s Lekutian 百度乐酷天拟走“日系风格”

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Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) has been phenomenally successful in its core online search business, but it’s had a much harder time diversifying into other areas like social networking and e-commerce. The company called it quits in microblogging last year after a late arrival and half-hearted effort in the space (previous post), and now its latest e-commerce initiative, called Lekutian, appears to also be suffering from its own identity crisis. Lekutian is Baidu’s second major attempt at getting into the lucrative but highly competitive e-commerce space, following its failed effort with another site, called You’a, last year. With Lekutian, Baidu was hoping to avoid the same fate by setting up the business as a joint venture with Rakuten (Tokyo: 4755), one of Japan’s a leading e-commerce companies. Signs that the venture wasn’t progressing as quickly as planned first emerged late last year when domestic media reported that Baidu was halting its new investment in the business — reports that Lekutian denied. Now a new flurry of reports have again emerged on Lekutian, with some saying the venture is making a major directional shift while others are saying the site is implementing major layoffs. (English article; Chinese article) Not surprisingly, Lekutian is denying the layoff reports, though it is also talking openly about the directional shift. One report cites a company spokeswoman saying the site wants to take advantage of its Japan connections to transform itself into an e-commerce platform with a distinctly Japanese flavor, including Japanese brand products and a more Japanese look and feel. The site will also emphasize a more mall-like business model, similar to Alibaba’s Tianmao, which operates a platform on which other retailers can open online stores rather than selling merchandise directly itself. Frankly speaking, this move by Lekutian smells a bit of desperation to me, and hints that the site isn’t doing very well and could easily end up with a similar fate  to the failed You’a. At the same time, I should commend Baidu this time for realizing that it is a latecomer to the e-commerce game, and will have to develop a more niche product as it clearly can’t compete with much bigger and more established giants like Tianmaol, 360Buy and Dangdang (NYSE: DANG), as well as sites operated and invested by big foreign names like Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). I do question whether the “Japanese experience” niche that Lekutian is pursuing will find a big audience in China, and suspect the site will ultimately end up as a small player that will later get quietly shut down. Not all of Baidu’s non-core investments have done so badly, with a big bet last year on an online travel site called Qunar looking like it could have good potential. (previous post) If Baidu is smart, it might be advised to invest in more existing companies like Qunar that already have a strong operating record, rather than trying to start its own new businesses, where its record is decidedly not so good.

Bottom line: A major directional shift by Baidu-invested e-commerce site Lekutian hints at troubles at the joint venture, which could end up as a niche player at best.

Related postings 相关文章:

◙ Baidu’s Qunar: Going Places 百度投资的去哪儿网：前途无量

◙ Baidu’s Takes a $300 Mln Spin on Travel Market 百度斥资3亿美元进军旅游市场

◙ Baidu’s Latest Botch: Microblogging 百度“微博”的倒掉

Dangdang and Gome: Marriage Ahead? 当当和国美：联姻前夕？

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The arrival of spring is bringing a sudden surge in new partnerships for China’s overheated tech space, as companies seek any competitive advantage they can find to stay in business. Online video sites Youku (NYSE: YOKU) and Tudou (Nasdaq: TUDO) led off the parade with announcement of their $1 billion marriage last month (previous post), followed by a strengthening of ties last week between Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Foxconn International (HKEx: 2038), one of its main iPhone producing partners. Now struggling online retailer Dangdang (NYSE: DANG) and equally embattled real-world electronics retailer Gome (HKEx: 493) have formally cemented a relationship that will see the pair merge their online electronics retailing business. (company announcement) This new tie-up has been rumored for a while now so it isn’t really news (previous post), though it should help both partners better compete with 360Buy, the online retailer that started out as an electronics seller, as well as Suning (Shenzhen: 002024), Gome’s main real-world retailing rival that has also pushed aggressively into the online space. But I suspect what really has investors excited, and myself intrigued as well, is the possibility that this alliance could eventually develop into an outright marriage between these 2 companies, each of which could greatly benefit from the other’s traditional strengths. Investors in New York bid up Dangdang shares as much as 15 percent in Monday trade to levels not seen since last September, with the stock closing up nearly 10 percent. Still, its shares are trading at just a third of their level from a year ago — testimony to a bloody price war with 360Buy and other players backed by the likes of Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) in China’s ultra-competitive e-commerce space. That price war pushed Dangdang itself deeply into the loss column in its latest reporting quarter, with the company posting a $21 million loss for the fourth quarter of 2011. (previous post) While Dangdang’s troubles have mostly appeared over the last year, Gome’s date back a bit longer, starting a few years back after its charismatic founder Huang Guangyu was arrested on insider trading allegations. Since then Gome has been involved in an endless series of internal power struggles, which has undermined its ability to function effectively. This new partnership won’t immediately address Gome’s internal problems, but it could give both companies a nice boost by allowing each to draw on its traditional strengths to help the other if the partnership runs smoothly. Of course there’s no guarantee that will happen, as Huang may still try to interfere with the new partnership from his prison cell and Dangdang’s husband and wife founders, Peggy Yu and Li Guoqing, are also quite opinionated and may not easily want to give up any control of their company. But if both sides realize that a strong partnership is in everyone’s own interest, I could see this relationship deepen and eventually result in a real-world merger in the next 2-3 years.

Bottom line: The new partnership between Gome and Dangdang could evolve into a true merger within the next 2-3 years if the 2 sides can work well together.

Related postings 相关文章:

◙ Dangdang, GOME In New Alliance, More to Come 国美携手当当网 或开启类似合作序幕

◙ Dangdang Loss Balloons In E-Commerce Wars 当当网在电子商务大战中亏损严重

◙ 360Buy Heats Up E-Books, People’s Daily Goes to Market 京东商城高调进军电子书,人民网开启上市进程

Dangdang Cuts Back in Latest Internet Distress Sign 当当网战略收缩

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I’ll close out the week with the latest trouble signs for China’s overheated Internet sector, where Dangdang (NYSE: DANG), the country’s lone major listed e-commerce company, is starting scale back some of its operations to save money. Media are reporting on the cutbacks as separate newly released data is showing just how badly bloated the sector became last year, when a flood of new money gushed in from investors buying into the hype of China’s Internet growth story. Let’s look at Dangdang first, as the company is showing all the signs of becoming the latest victim to feel the pinch of super-heated competition in the e-commerce space, where it competes with big names like 360Buy, also known as Jingdong Mall, as well as online retail sites invested and operated by other global giants like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN). The latest media reports quote Dangdang CEO Li Guoqing saying his company is initiating a “strategic pullback” in its geographic coverage, in a bid to lower its transport costs. (English article) Li added his company will put more focus in the future on its VIP customers, who obviously offer better returns than the mom-and-pop buyers in smaller cities that are far more expensive to serve. His comments come after Dangdang swung squarely into the red in its latest reporting quarter, posting a net loss of nearly $21 million after earning a $2 million profit in the year-ago period. (previous post) Hyper competition in the e-commerce space is partly the result of a massive influx of money last year that saw both domestic and foreign investors pump tens of billions of dollars into start-ups and larger companies like 360Buy, which made headlines last spring when it received more than $1 billion in new funds. New data just released by venture capital tracking firm Zero2IPO shows venture capital and private equity firms, who tend to focus on start-ups with smaller investments of $1-$10 million, pumped a record $5.8 billion into young Chinese firms last year, with Internet companies emerging as the clear favorites as 276 such companies received $3.3 billion in new funds — a 3.6-fold rise over the previous year. (English article) Those figures only reflect the smaller investments that Zero2IPO tracks, but other firms like group buying sites Dianping and 55tuan received much larger sums in the hundreds of millions of dollars, truly bloating the sector. One executive at Groupon.cn, another group buying site unrelated to US giant Groupon (Nasdaq: GRPN) summarized the current situation nicely in a recent interview, saying the investors who once fawned on all these Chinese Internet companies have suddenly lost their appetite to provide new funds due to concerns of a bubble, causing companies like his to make mass layoffs just to survive. Dangdang seems big enough to survive this bubble in the long term, but look for more short-term pain at Dangdang and just about everyone else in the e-commerce and group buying spaces for the rest of this year and possibly into 2013 until the bubble finally finishes bursting.

Bottom line: Dangdang’s business scaleback and new investment data from 2011 are the latest reflections of last year’s China Internet bubble, whose bursting is starting to accelerate.

Related postings 相关文章:

◙ China IPO Train Hits Bump With Vancl Resignation 中国上市事件撞上凡客诚品CFO辞职

◙  Mid-Sized Firms Suffer First In Internet Bubble Burst 中国互联网泡沫破裂

◙ Internet Investors Seek Refuge in Big Names 互联网投资者选择性支持中国市场领头羊

 

Dangdang Loss Balloons In E-Commerce Wars 当当网在电子商务大战中亏损严重

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Dangdang (NYSE: DANG), China’s only major listed e-commerce site, has just released its latest quarterly results that show its losses ballooning, reflecting the overheated competition in the space that is already starting to hit many smaller companies and could soon even claim a bigger player. Dangdang’s latest report shows its loss jumped to 130 million yuan, or nearly $21 million, in the final quarter of last year, reversing a $2 million profit the previous year. (company announcement) But perhaps more worrisome, the loss was nearly double the company’s loss for the previous quarter, as its margins tumbled amid a series of price wars with archrivals 360Buy, Amazon China (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Wal-Mart-backed (NYSE: WMT) Yihaodian, in an increasingly bloody war that has already started to claim a number of smaller victims. Earlier this week, another online retailer, money-losing Vipshop became China’s first Internet company to file for a New York IPO this year, amid a flurry of chatter that the company was in desperate need of cash that boded poorly for the offering, which I suspect may never happen. (previous post) Another high profile dispute has seen a company named Pinju Wang have to suspend operations after saying it failed to receive promised funds from entities connected to online entertainment specialist Shanda. (Chinese article) Also significantly, 360Buy, one of the biggest forces behind the current price wars, has denied several times this week it has plans to launch a New York IPO this year, even after it announced such plans late last year, only to almost immediately start running into delays. Such denials are always problematic, as Chinese companies will often deny something even when it’s true. But in this case, I suspect that 360Buy may be afraid to proceed with an offering right now for fear of having to release a set of very ugly financials that would show the markets just how badly it is bleeding cash — hardly a way to attract investors. The markets are already showing their displeasure at the rampant competition, bidding down Dangdang’s shares by as much as 10 percent after its results came out, though they bounced back a bit afterwards to close down just 4 percent. Still, Dangdang’s shares are trading at a quarter of their level from just a year ago, and I see further pressure until the current price wars finally start to subside — a turn unlikely to happen until late this year at the earliest.

Bottom line: Dangdang’s ballooning loss in its latest results reflect rampant competition in China’s e-commerce space, with little relief in sight until late this year at the earliest.

Related postings 相关文章:

◙ Vipshop Vies For First Internet Listing of 2012 唯品会欲在赴美上市电商公司中力拔头筹

◙ E-Commerce: 360Buy Awaits IPO Window, Amazon Expands 京东IPO融资心切 亚马逊物流扩张加剧竞争

◙ Dangdang Discovers E-Books — Finally 当当推电子书仍有成功希望

AsiaInfo Bidding War Erupts, More to Come 亚信联创收购战打响

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The confidence crisis for US-listed China stocks has taken an interesting twist with the start of a bidding war for AsiaInfo-Linkage (Nasdaq: ASIA), one of the oldest US-listed China firms. The development underscores the fact that despite questionable accounting practices at many smaller US-listed Chinese firms, there are still many good companies in the market that may look like good values for buyers wanting to take advantage of depressed share prices that have resulted in cheap valuations. On the IPO front, meanwhile, a steady stream of noise from e-commerce giant 360Buy, which also goes by the name Jingdong Mall, indicates the company may be getting close to making its first public filing for a public offering that it first announced plans for last fall. Let’s look at AsiaInfo  first, as the new bidding war could be the first in a new string of buyout offers for healthy US-listed Chinese firms whose shares have tumbled by 50 percent or more in the last year after a series of accounting scandals. Media are reporting that big-name US private equity firms including KKR and TPG are eying bids for AsiaInfo-Linkage that could value the company at $1 billion or more. (English article) That would be a big premium over its market value that stood at about $700 million when Chinese investor CITIC Capital made an offer to buy out AsiaInfo last month for an undisclosed sum. (previous post) AsiaInfo’s shares rose 11 percent to $12.95 after news of a potential bidding war came out yesterday, and its shares have risen considerably from December when they traded below $7. Of course it’s also worth noting the company’s shares traded above $30 less than 2 years ago, when Chinese tech and Internet stocks were still popular. Investors will be watching closely to see how this new bidding war evolves, and I would expect to see more offers emerging for other healthy companies that private equity firms see as undervalued at current market prices. Meantime, 360Buy has just said it will invest 3.5  billion yuan, or more than $500 million, to beef up its logistics systems, in the latest of a series of recent announcements to raise its profile in the run-up to a potential multibillion-dollar US IPO. (English article) The company earlier this week announced the official launch of its e-book service, and has recently brought in a series of experienced managers from other companies to make itself more attractive to overseas investors. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the 360Buy make its first public IPO filing by the end of March if stock markets remain strong, though it will probably attract limited investor interest due to stiff competition from not only domestic rivals like Dangdang (NYSE: DANG), but also aggressive foreign players in China like Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), which is trying to acquire a controlling stake in local player Yihaodian.

Bottom line: A bidding war for AsiaInfo-Linkage could presage more such wars for US-listed Chinese firms whose shares have been hit by negative investor sentiment.

Related postings 相关文章:

◙ AsiaInfo, Xinhua in Latest Listings Shuffle 新华电视悄然上市 亚信联创或被摘牌

◙  E-Commerce: 360Buy Awaits IPO Window, Amazon Expands 京东IPO融资心切 亚马逊物流扩张加剧竞争

◙ 360Buy Heats Up E-Books, People’s Daily Goes to Market 京东商城高调进军电子书,人民网开启上市进程

News Digest: February 16, 2012 报摘： 2012年2月16日

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he following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on February 16. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.

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◙ China Mobile (HKEx: 941) to Build Second National Call Center (English article)

◙ Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Asks Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Suning to Drop iPad (English article)

◙ SouFun (NYSE: SFUN) Announces Q4 and Fiscal Year 2011 Results (Businesswire)

◙ NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES)  Reports Q4 and Fiscal Year 2011 Financial Results (PRNewswire)

◙ Former Acer (Taipei: 2353) China VP Named 360Buy’s CMO (Chinese article)

◙ Latest calendar for Q1 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)

News Digest: February 15, 2012 报摘： 2012年2月15日

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The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on February 15. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.

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◙ HP’s (NYSE: HPQ) China PC Market Share Drops to 5.3% (English article)

◙ Renren (NYSE: RENN) Updates Preliminary Q4 Results and Q4 Earnings Date (PRNewswire)

◙ ZTE (HKEx: 763) Announces Progress of Material Litigation With Ericsson (HKEx announcement)

◙ Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) Removes iPad From China Site, GOME, 360Buy Still Selling (Chinese article)

◙ Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO)-Alibaba Talks At An Impasse: Sources (English article)

◙ Latest calendar for Q1 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)

360Buy Losing Focus With Travel Plan 京东商城涉足在线旅行服务业 偏离核心业务

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China’s Internet companies are famous for straying from their core businesses in pursuit of new growth even though such initiatives seldom work, and now e-commerce specialist 360Buy looks set to joint the club with a new travel services initiative. (English article) Nearly ever major Chinese Internet firm has dabbled in areas outside its core competency, with names like Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) and Alibaba all making such initiatives, nearly all of which have ended in abysmal failures. None of these companies seem to have noticed that the big western names like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Expedia (Nasdaq: EXPE) have succeeded largely by focusing on their core areas, and only expanding into new ones when they can leverage some of their existing expertise. So that makes the latest move by 360Buy, which also goes by the name Jingdong Mall, look perfectly consistent with what other Chinese companies have done. In this case, 360Buy says it will launch a hotel booking service, and that it has already signed up 20,000 hotels in China, Hong Kong and Macau as partners. A company spokesman said the move is part of the company’s drive to become a more diversified online services company, instead of just an e-commerce specialist. Never mind the fact that the online travel services sector is already quite competitive, dominated by Ctrip (Nasdaq: CTRP) and Expedia-controlled eLong (Nasdaq: LONG), or that Baidu also recently entered the space with its investment in a company called Qunar. (previous post) We should also ignore the fact that 360Buy is currently locked in a series of price wars with rivals like Dangdang (NYSE DANG), and that rival Alibaba has learned its lesson and remains focused on e-commerce after its foray into online search ended in a complete disaster several years ago. In fact, I suspect this latest initiative is probably designed to generate market interest in 360Buy, which wants desperately to make a New York IPO to raise much needed cash. 360Buy launched its IPO process last fall, only to see the offering fall victim to abysmal market sentiment due to a series of accounting scandals at US-listed Chinese companies. This new travel services initiative looks like fantasy to me, and an initiative that’s 95 percent likely to fail. But those kinds of difficult odds never stopped a Chinese company from this kind of initiative before, and I would expect to see a few more strange initiatives coming out of 360Buy before it relaunches its IPO bid, probably sometime in the first half of this year.

Bottom line: 360Buy’s new initiative in the travel services space is almost guaranteed to fail, and could be more designed to generate hype in the run-up to a US IPO later this year.

Related postings 相关文章:

◙ E-Commerce: 360Buy Awaits IPO Window, Amazon Expands 京东IPO融资心切 亚马逊物流扩张加剧竞争

◙ 360Buy Heats Up E-Books, People’s Daily Goes to Market 京东商城高调进军电子书,人民网开启上市进程

◙ Internet Investors Seek Refuge in Big Names 互联网投资者选择性支持中国市场领头羊

 

 

News Digest: February 3, 2012 报摘： 2012年2月3日

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The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on February 3. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.

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◙ Jaguar Land Rover Said to Plan Partnership With Chery to Expand in China (English article)

◙ Unicom (HKEx: 762) Studies Structural Change, Some Sub-Provincial Units to Use Vertical Mgmt (Chinese article)

◙ Amazon China Opens Tianjin Operations Center (English article)

◙ WuXi Pharmatech (NYSE: WX) Profit Margins Dwarfing U.S. Lead China’s Drug Deal Targets (English article)

◙ China Publishes Full List of IPO Applicants For 1st Time (English article)

◙ Latest calendar for Q1 earnings reports (Earnings calendar)

E-Commerce: 360Buy Explores IM, Wal-Mart Gets Serious 京东商城内测即时通讯工具,沃尔玛有意控股一号店

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There are a couple of interesting tidbits from the e-commerce space today, with 360Buy reportedly making a dubious move into instant messaging, as Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) prepares to boost its online presence by taking control of its Chinese online partner, Yihaodian. Let’s look first at 360Buy, also known as Jingdong Mall, which has reportedly developed an instant messaging product that it will launch later this year, according to Chinese media reports. (English article) If you had asked me 10 years ago about this move, I would have said that maybe it looked smart, as online shoppers and merchants should theoretically enjoy chatting with each other about their latest favorite products, discounts and so forth, just like any other community. The problem is, online auctions leader eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) tried just such a move with its purchase of IM specialist Skype in 2005, in what looked like a logical move at the time. Of course, industry watchers will know that move ended in disappointment with eBay selling Skype to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) last year after failing to reap any synergies from the company. The case here is a little different as 360Buy is a B2C specialist whereas eBay is C2C. But I see no reason why the result will be any different, especially as 360Buy’s IM product will face stiff competition from existing offerings like Skype, Microsoft’s MSN Messenger and Tencent’s (HKEx: 700) popular QQ service. In the other news bit, financial services group Ping An is getting ready to sell some or all of its large stake in online retailer Yihaodian, with Wal-Mart lining up to buy more shares to become the company’s controlling stakeholder, Chinese media are reporting. (Chinese article) Wal-Mart already bought an undisclosed minority stake in Yihaodian last year (previous post), and has made it clear it intends to become a major player in Chinese e-commerce, after largely losing out in its home US market to big names like Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) due to its initial dismissal of the potential of online retailing. Yihaodian has already begun to boost its activity following Wal-Mart’s initial purchase, and look for it to become even more aggressive after the world’s biggest traditional retailer takes control, adding even more pressure to a space plagued by rampant competition and non-ending price wars.

Bottom line: 360Buy’s new instant messaging product is bound to fail, while Wal-Mart will add even more competition to the overheated e-commerce market by taking control of Yihaodian.

Related postings 相关文章:

◙ 360Buy Heats Up E-Books, People’s Daily Goes to Mkt 京东商城高调进军电子书,人民网开启上市进程

◙ Wal-Mart Buys Into China E-Commerce 沃尔玛进军中国电子商务

◙ Price Wars Beat Up Online Retailers 网上零售商引爆价格战