Ecommerce Outsourcer Yi-Inc Raised $20m in Series B;Tencent Leaks News About New B2C Platform;Pandora Coming To China Soon
1. Ecommerce Outsourcer Yi-Inc Raised $20m in Series B
Yi-Inc, a Guangzhou-based ecommerce outsourcer that operates online shop for home appliance vendors including Philips, Midea and Galanz, announced raising $20m in Series B round of funding from Trust Bridge Partners, IDGVC and HongKong-based venture capital Big Profit.
People would be no stranger to the official Philips online shop on Taobao or other ecommerce outlets, but few get to know that these shops are actually being operated by Yi-Inc., the company behind Philips’ online presences.
Founded in 2009, Yi-Inc now has monthly sales of over RMB30m ($4.6m).
2. Tencent Leaks News About New B2C Platform QQ Wanggou
In the wake of Taobao’s announcement of TMall B2C Open Platform, Tencent today leaked something trying to steal the thunder. The Shenzen-based internet giant which significantly lags behind Taobao in ecommerce territory will name its long-rumored super B2C platform as “QQ Wanggou (QQ网购, translates to QQ Online Shopping)”.
As of now QQ Wanggou is accessible through second-level domain buy.qq.com and will be moved to an independent domain name next year.
According to people familiar with the matter, Tencent is now trying to get independent 3rd party B2C sites onboard, including Dangdang, Vancl and Yihaodian, while TMall is also appealing to them among other 38 Chinese B2C sites.
3. Aliyun To Launch Facetime-like Service Yunliao
Aliyun, the Alibaba subsidiary of innovative thinking which just gave birth to a mixed reviewed cloud-based Aliyun Mobile, has never stopped its step in search of new innovations. The company is about to launch a Facetime-like service Yunliao that allows Aliyun mobile users to do video chatting over Wi-Fi for free.
Wangjian, head of Aliyun once disclosed that the company has sold over 10k mobile in a month after the launch.
4. China Mobile Adding Over 5.7 million New Users In Aug.
China Mobile, the largest operator in the world has just grew its user base to nearly 628 million with over 5.7 million new users adding to its wireless service in Aug. while over 40 million users are on its 3G service.
5. Pandora Coming To China Soon
Pandora, the online streaming service listed on NYSE in June of this year is dipping its toes into China soon, according to people close to Pandora execs.
The Oakland, Ca. based music company is expected to announce its choice of China business head soon.
The Chinese streaming market is already fiercely competitive and extremely crowded with local initiatives including Douban.fm, Xiami.fm, Baidu Ting, and Renren Radio.
People are speculating that Pandora might set up a JV with a local company to operate China business.
Voice
Joe Chen: Most Daily Deal Sites Will Run Out Of Money In H2
Joe Chen, CEO of Renren Inc. predicted that a large number of daily deal sites are running out of money in H2 since investors are being more constrained in the market.
Ever since the concept of group buying was made popular in China we’ve seen thousands of clones mushrooming in less than a year and hot money inflowing into the area. But as of now none of the top 10 daily deal sites in China have made any profit yet.
Ding Lei: I Once Thought Weibo Is Not That Promising
Ding Lei, founder and CEO of gaming powerhouse NetEase confessed when giving a keynote that he once thought weibo is less promising since “it’s uncomfortable and slow to post weibo messages through small-sized mobile.”