Alibaba takes giant strides

Yu said that he doesn't think that UCWeb is being taken over by Alibaba. "Very few of the investments made by China's big three Internet giants - Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent - were through stock offerings. It is clear that Jack Ma and Alibaba have treated UCWeb as partners by offering us shares," said Yu, adding that both UCWeb and Alibaba share the same dream in the mobile Internet.

The UCWeb Mobile Business Group will integrate UCWeb's 3,000 employees into Alibaba and will be Alibaba's third business group after the e-commerce Business Group and Cloud Computing & Big Data Business Group.

Yu said that Alibaba has enough talent and achievement in terms of e-commerce. But in terms of developing non-e-commerce areas, Alibaba still lacks a "pivot", which can ensure sustainable traffic growth despite making several investments. "Adding UCWeb's strengths in browser, app distribution and mobile search can certainly give Alibaba a strong push in the mobile Internet sector."

UCWeb, which was founded 10 years ago, has more than 500 million users globally for its browser business. It also has a leading mobile gaming distribution platform named Jiuyou and a mobile search service called Shenma.

Lu Jingyu, an analyst on the mobile Internet market with iResearch Consulting, said that by taking full control of UCWeb, Alibaba is expected to enrich its portfolio of mobile offerings.

"Although Alibaba has made a lot of effort in the mobile space, such as launching Mobile Taobao and Alipay Wallet, there are still lots of gaps that the group needs to bridge for creating a comprehensive ecosystem in the mobile Internet world," Lu said.

She added that UCWeb's strengths in browser, app distribution and mobile search can effectively boost Alibaba's presence in mobile Internet technologies. But the investment can hardly bring any direct influence to Tencent Holding Ltd's popular mobile messaging app WeChat, which has more than 500 million users, Lu said.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China's largest e-commerce company, is expanding its US operations through an invitation-only website for retailers called 11 Main.

The site is meant for specialty shops and boutiques offering clothes and jewelry that aren't available through mass-market retailers, according to a statement on the website. The home page of the soon-to-open platform asks customers who want to shop early to request an invitation.

Alibaba has expanded its US foothold with investments in ShopRunner, Quixey Inc and Fanatics Inc as it seeks to move beyond China and compete with sites such as Amazon.com.

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