China’s Alibaba group all set to expand in the mobile sector.
China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group made a statement on June 11, 2014 saying that it will buy over the remaining shares of mobile browser firm UCWeb. This deal will prove to be one of the biggest mergers in China’s internet history. The Alibaba group pumping its spending spree comes a little before the company’s US listing.
This latest deal by Alibaba will be larger than Baidu Inc.’s 1.9 billion acquisition of 91 Wireless in 2013. The number of investments by Alibaba are already pegged at a total of $4.8 billion in the past six months. The recent investment of Alibaba in UCWeb emphasizes that the company is willing to do more business in the mobile sector.
On the other hand, rival Tencent Holdings Ltd, which is China’s biggest listed internet firm, is dominant on the smartphone screens with its popular messaging application – WeChat. Alibaba on its micro blog said, “This integration will create the biggest merger in the history of China’s Internet”. The internet giant already holds about 66 percent stake in UCWeb.
Alibaba and the UCWeb group will jointly form the UCWeb Mobile Business Group which will be responsible for search services, web browsers, mobile application distribution, the mobile gaming platform, location based service, and mobile literature service.
Photo Credits: Ejinsight
