Alibaba Buys 18% Share in Sina Weibo

                                                         by David Parmer

 Hangzhou-based Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce group bought an 18% share in Shanghai-based Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media, paying $586 million for its preferred and common stock.

Alibaba has an option to increase its stake to 30% at some future time. This tie- up will let marketers on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms better connect and serve Weibo users. Cooperation will focus on account connectivity, data exchange, online payments and online marketing. The agreement is expected to create $338 million in ad and social commerce income for Weibo in the next three years.

 Weibo, with 500 million users is China’s most popular micro-blogging service. Alibaba runs Taobao Marketplace, a consumer-oriented e-commerce site and Alibaba, a business-to-business site. (DP)

 Sina Weibo website (Chinese)  http://weibo.com/

 Alibaba website (English)  http://www.alibaba.com/