騰訊投資京東 意在對抗阿里

Chinese Internet giant Tencent, which is best known for its wildly popular messaging service WeChat (known as Weixin in China), has officially combined its e-commerce operations with online retailer , after rumors last month hinted at such a move.

The two companies have inked a strategic partnership that will see JD tap on Tencent’s significant mobile and Internet user base — WeChat, for example, has 272 million monthly active users– and Tencent will be able to leverage on JD’s e-commerce services. As part of their cooperation, Tencent will support JD in its e-commerce business by offering priority access points in its chat platforms, WeChat and mobile QQ, as well as provide support from other key platforms.

Tencent will initially hold a 15 percent stake in JD upon the completion of this deal, which Bloombergpins at $214.7 million, and it will further subscribe at IPO price for an additional 5 percent of JD on a post-IPO basis. JD just filed for a $1.5 billion IPOin January this year.

In the meantime, JD will acquire 100 percent interests in Tencent’s e-commerce businesses — including QQ Wanggou and Paipai marketplace, logistics assets and personnel, as well as a minority stake in Tencent’s e-commerce site (known as Yixun in China).

Both companies will also cooperate on online payment services, as they seek to improve the online shopping experience of customers. WeChat in China has already integrated payment options, and the partnership will no doubt give more emphasis to that.

Martin Lau, the president of Tencent, says: “Our strategic partnership with JD will not only extend our presence in the fast-growing physical goods e-commerce market, but also allow us to better develop our enabling services such as payment, public accounts and performance-based advertising network to create a more prosperous ecosystem for overall e-commerce activities on our platforms.”

Tencent has been thirsty for success in e-commerce as it seeks to tap on its large userbase from its social platforms, especially WeChat, seeking to come up against Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

A combination of Tencent and JD’s e-commerce businesses will no doubt lead to a stronger push for e-commerce on WeChat. It’s still an early start to the year, but Tencent has already been taking steps to boost its e-commerce presence on WeChat via a $50 million investmentin ‘China’s Yelp’ announced yesterday, as well as a logistics deallast month.

Tencent and JD’s partnership can be viewed as waging war on China’s e-commerce stalwart Alibaba — and it will pose a huge threat to the latter, which is already stepping up its mobile social efforts. Alibaba’s CEO Jonathan Lu has pledged to continue the e-commerce giant’s string of big investmentsas it continues focusing on improving its services for mobile – and the company has launched mobile gamesand upped efforts to promote its chat app, woo mobile shopperswith free data and even give away free smartphonesto retailers in China.據美國科技網站The Next Web報道，以風靡全中國的社交通訊服務軟件WeChat（在中國被稱爲“微信”）而最爲人所知的中國互聯網巨頭騰訊公司正式將其電子商務部門併入股京東（），而在二月，有關於此的各種傳言滿天飛。

這兩家公司建立了戰略伙伴關係：一方面，京東將利用騰訊龐大的手機和互聯網用戶羣體，如微信擁有2.72億月活躍用戶）；另一方面，騰訊將能夠借力於京東的電子商務服務來。作爲合作的一部分，騰訊將優先向京東提供其聊天平臺（如微信和手機QQ客戶端）提供入口，並從其他的大平臺裏提供支持，以助力京東在實物電商領域的發展。

這次交易完成後，騰訊將先持有京東約15%的股權，而據彭博社估計，約合2.147億美元。騰訊同時還簽署了京東IPO股價認購協議，將在後者上市時追加認購５％的股權。今年1月，京東在美國提交了上市申請，計劃融資15億美元。

同時，京東將收購騰訊電商旗下的QQ網購和拍拍網的100%權益、物流人員和資產以及（騰訊電商網站，在中國被稱作“易迅網”）少數股權。

雙方還將在在線支付服務方面進行合作，以提升顧客的網購體驗。在中國，微信支付接口已全面開放，雙方這次的合作無疑將更加註重微信支付的普及。

騰訊總裁劉熾平說道：“我們與京東的戰略合作關係將不僅擴大我們在快速增長的實物電商領域的影響力，同時能夠更好地發展我們的各項電子商務服務業務，如支付、公衆賬號和效果廣告平臺，爲我們平臺上的所有電商業務創造一個更繁榮的生態系統。”

一直以來騰訊都渴望在電子商務領域取得成功，因此它試圖利用其社交平臺的龐大用戶，尤其是微信用戶，來對抗中國電子商務巨頭阿里巴巴。

騰訊與京東的聯合毫無疑問將藉助微信有力開闢電子商務新戰場。2014年伊始，騰訊就已經採取一系列措施來擴大微信電子商務領域。先是上個月與多家物流公司達成的合作交易，接着又宣佈斥資5000萬美元投資大衆點評網。

騰訊與京東商城的聯姻可視爲對中國電商巨頭阿里巴巴發起的戰書，而且今後將對阿里巴巴構成更大的挑戰，阿里巴巴已經在加快其移動社交應用推廣。阿里巴巴首席執行官陸兆禧曾表示，會繼續進行電子商務的一系列大型投資，繼續強化移動端業務——阿里巴巴推出了手機遊戲，並加大力度提升聊天應用軟件，向手機購物者提供免費數據，甚至向中國的智能手機零售商免費提供。