As China-based e-commerce company Alibaba moves closer to a touted initial public offering in the US that is expected to raise up to $15bn, it has accelerated its corporate investments, making a series of large investments that indicate how large internet companies need to expand in what has become an extremely competitive market, and this is embodied by its $1.5bn acquisition of AutoNavi earlier this week.
Although the Alibaba Group as a whole has many subsidiaries, Alibaba’s primary activities are in various forms of commerce. Its main subsidiary, Alibaba.com, operates as an online trading platform for businesses, while Taobao performs the same function for consumers. It also operates an online payment service, Alipay, and an online investment service called Yu’e Bao, which has acquired RMB 500bn ($80bn) of assets under management in less than a year.
Alibaba has grown into one of the largest internet companies in China, which has itself led to a land grab situation where it is competing with companies such as social networking and online advertising company Tencent and search engine provider Baidu to become the pre-eminent internet company in the region.
Just as Google and Facebook have competed in the west by diversifying their services through multiple acquisitions, Alibaba is doing this through strategic investments.
AutoNavi, which provides a China-based digital map service similar to that provided by Google Maps in other countries, is a prime example of the approach. Alibaba paid $294m for a 28% stake in the company in 2013 but felt the need to fully absorb it into its product offering in the run up to its IPO.
The navigation service is just one of several large investments Alibaba has made in the past two months. It invested $215m in a $280m round raised by free mobile communications service Tango, participated in a $250m round raised by US-based ride sharing company Lyft and participated in rounds for travel website Byecity and online education company TutorGroup, in the process grabbing footholds in a range of popular online services.
The company also invested $692m in InTime, the operator of a brick-and-mortar retail chain in China. Access to InTime’s affluent customer base not only expands potential for Alipay but gives some revenue insurance for Alibaba by diversifying its retail base offline.
In addition, Alibaba has launched a $100m entertainment investment platform called Yu Le Bao that will allow individuals to finance films, television shows and games.
Yu Le Bao is structured as a similar entity to Yu’e Bao but crucially, its launch came less than a month after Alibaba paid $804m for a controlling stake in ChinaVision Media, giving it access to a pool of experienced entertainment producers and a range of online content that could hypothetically be streamed as part of a subscription service like Netflix or Amazon Prime.
The timing of the investments can be linked to the forthcoming IPO and a tendency to ensure it is successful – China-based microblogging service Weibo, in which Alibaba is a shareholder, floated in the US under its range on Friday and US-based IPOs by Chinese companies have been a mixed bag so far – but its influence will be felt for some time.
Tencent has made its own moves in the past month, investing $500m in Korea-based mobile games developer CJ Games and acquiring a 15% share in JD.com for $215m, and it looks increasingly like their rivalry could lead to an internet arms race, with several other large companies to be used as ammunition. It remains to be seen who will win, but for both firms it is clear that diversification is the key.