Wal-Mart Buys Into China E-Commerce 沃尔玛进军中国电子商务

By newsdoug on May 17, 2011

Wal-Mart’s (NYSE: WMT) recent announcement that it is buying an undisclosed stake in China e-commerce company Yihaodian has touched off widespread chatter that this young but up-and-coming Chinese online retailer could become Wal-Mart’s online partner in China. (English article; Chinese article) The e-commerce space in China does indeed appear to be hot these days, with 360Buy recently raising a whopping $1.5 billion in new capital (previous post), and Dangdang (NYSE: DANG) making a successful IPO earlier this year. Considering that US online retailing leader Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) has had a presence in China for several years now through its purchase of Joyo.com, it does indeed seem logical that Wal-Mart might want to position itself in the local online retailing space as it embarks on a major China build-up, to avoid losing ground to both its US rival and other Chinese players like Alibaba’s Taobao in this Wal-Mart shops for Yihaodian fast growing space. Yihaodian’s numbers do look impressive: after just three years in business, the company expects to notch 800 million yuan in revenue this year and keep its top line growing at 100 percent or more over the next two years. I expect that Wal-Mart is positioning itself for a potential buy-out if Yihaodian continues to perform well. Given Wal-Mart’s already sizable presence in China, the connections and expertise it has to offer could provide a potent combination for Yihaodian, creating a major new player on the China e-commerce scene.

Bottom line: Wal-Mart’s tie-up with Yihaodian marks the US retailer’s first step into China’s lucrative e-commerce arena, and could pay handsome returns for both parties.

沃尔玛<WMT.N>近期宣布收购中国电子商务企业1号店股权，外界盛传後者可能成为沃尔玛在中国大陆的在线合作夥伴。近期中国电子商务领域如火如荼，京东商城新筹资15亿美元，当当商城<DANG.N>今年稍早在美国成功上市。考虑到美国在线零售巨头亚马逊<AMZN.O>已通过收购卓越，进军中国市场数年，沃尔玛想通过收购本土企业确立在中国电子商务领域地位，听起来倒也合情合理，这样有助其与美国竞争对手–亚马逊，以及淘宝等中国电子商务企业竞争。1号店业绩也确实不俗：运营才三年，该公司预计今年营收可达8亿元人民币，且未来两年营收可望以100%甚至更快速度增长。倘若1号店保持这样的势头，我估计沃尔玛未来可能全面收购该公司。而沃尔玛在中国市场已颇具影响力，建立的网络与经验可助1号店一臂之力，巩固其在中国电子商务领域地位。

一句话：沃尔玛与1号店结盟，是沃尔玛进军中国电子商务的第一步，可望带来双赢局面。

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