The Hong Kong-listed arm of China’s e-commerce firm Alibaba (阿里巴巴) said yesterday it had agreed to buy US software developer Auctiva for an undisclosed sum, accelerating a push into the world’s biggest economy.
The purchase of Auctiva, which sells tools to help businesses list their products on eBay, comes after Alibaba.com acquired another US third-party software developer, Vendio Services, in June.
CLIENTELE
Alibaba.com said the acquisitions would add more than 250,000 customers to its overall business.
Businesses using Auctiva and Vendio will have access to 1.5 million suppliers on Alibaba.com’s sourcing platform and the new AliExpress, which allows small firms to buy products on the site in their preferred currency using PayPal.
“Many small business owners never ... thought that they would be able to source their products from overseas, as they did not have the staff or technological resources to do so,” Alibaba.com chief executive David Wei (衛哲) said.
“We are bringing both sides of the equation together to make international sourcing as easy as possible for any business,” he said.
Alibaba.com said the acquisition of Auctiva was part of a US$100 million investment plan for AliExpress, which was officially launched in April.
EARNINGS
Alibaba.com reported this month that first-half net profit jumped 39.8 percent from a year earlier to 693 million yuan (US$102 million) as the number of its paying members grew and revenue rose.
In May, Alibaba.com said billionaire investor George Soros had become one of its top three largest shareholders.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
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