Invite colleagues
Interesting news hitting the wire today..... Taobao, the biggest commerce site in China, is splitting itself up into three sites and entities.
Taobao is often referred to as the "eBay of China" but it's a much broader e-commerce platform and the split reflects that. Now there will be Taobao itself, a consumer-to-consumer marketplace (i.e. like eBay), Taobao Mall, a business-to-consumer marketplace (i.e. businesses open storefront on Taobao Mall to sell to consumers) and eTao, a shopping search engine.
Despite the split, still no IPO of Taobao, on the horizon. Its biggest shareholders include Yahoo, which is itching for Taobao to go public so it can sell its multibillion dollar stake and put it to better use.
Alibaba's founder Jack Ma has said for a while now that Yahoo should split itself up. So he's putting his money where his mouth is with this move to split up Taobao.
Source: Business Insider
Written on Monday, 20 June 2011 20:17 by Matt McDougall
