Wal-Mart invests in Chinese eCommerce company

WMT

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, (NYSE:WMT) the World’s largest retailer, invested in China’s Top online seller of consumer electronics and communication products, in a push to extend its reach to more Chinese buyers.

Chinese online business-to-consumer company 360buy Jingdong Mall secured US$500M in funding from 6 strategic partners, including Wal-Mart, a 360buy spokeswoman said Friday.

Wal-Mart’s investment amount was not disclosed but the company has been eager to tap into the pocketbooks of China’s growing middle class, and earlier this year launched in China an eCommerce site for its Sam’s Club Warehouse stores.

360buy Chief Executive Liu Qiangdong told a press conference Thursday that the money will be used to build logistics centers in China.

China’s massive eCommerce market is highly fragmented and competitive, where 360buy battles Taobao, a unit of Alibaba Group and E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc for dominance. 360buy had 14.1% of China’s B2C market in Q-3 while Dangdang had 3.7%, according to data from Analysys International.—Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. www.livetradingnews.com

Posted by Shayne Heffernan on Dec 27th, 2010and filed underEquities, Latest News, Markets, USA.You can follow any responses to this entry through theRSS 2.0You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site