Yesterday in Chinese traditional calendar is the day of Dongzhi, namely mid-winter. Today the temperature dropped dramatically national wide, and snow started heavily hitting some parts of China. Winter is getting very cold! However, Chinese Internet and advertisement market is very much heated by the news we just heard: Sina, one of the biggest Chinese portals have acquired Focus Media, a media company which operates the largest outdoor advertising network in China. Focus Media delivers advertisements using LCD televisions located at the elevator waiting area of business and commercial building, and it also owns the largest Chinese Internet advertising agency Allyes. The deal is reported worthy of around $1 billion and the detail is expected to be disclosed later tonight.
We are not really interested in the stories behind the acquisition (no doubt there will be plenty of stories coming in next few days), but what will be the impact on China web? The biggest portal, the no.1 outdoor advertising network and the leading online advertising agency, are we expecting an Advertising Giant is to be born soon? Another interesting point we are looking at is that how we can seamlessly merge the online (web) and offline (outdoor) ads markets to generate more opportunaties and profit.
Update:
- SINA to buy certain assets of Focus Media [Reuters]
- Sina.com Snaps Up Focus Media [ChinaStakes]