Rumor has it that Tencent acquired the remaining 20% of 51buy.com, a 3C etailer which it bought about 80% last year, making the B2C site a wholly-owned subsidiary now.
Chinese B2C warfare has been scaling up with a battlefield littered with DBs, even though more are stepping up into the scene. Tencent is one of those late-comers. The Shenzhen-based Internet giant acquired a big army of B2C verticals via a flurry of investments from last year on, 51buy.com, or Yixun, is one of them.
Tencent pinned big hopes on turning Yixun into the “hub” of its ecommerce initiative, and integrated many other ecommerce-related businesses into Yixun. For instance, QQ Wanggou (buy.qq.com, Tencent’s own B2C arm is now in partnership with Yixun.
Last year, Tencent invested into YiXun in its Series A round. And YiXun CEO revealed to public this May that Tencent has 80% of the company.
Also in this May, YiXun cooperated with Buy.QQ.com (something like Taobao’s Tmall) to operate 3C products on the platform. One of the many benefits you get, according to the CEO, when partnered with Tencent, is lower user acquisition cost and marketing costs, Tencent has it all.
But both sides haven’t confirmed the “wholly-own subsidiary rumor” yet.