Alibaba Stop Running Ads on Baidu

It is confirmed by Alibaba that Alibaba B2B had sent a formal notification to Baidu about the termination of the advertising contract on October 10. All ads will terminate soon.

Alibaba said that the termination of Baidu's advertising contract is based on the effect. Alibaba said that according to the analysis of customer data, the quality of Baidu's traffic has decreased year by year, there is a considerable proportion of unknown sources of invalid traffic.

As early as the end of 2007, Alibaba's brother company Taobao had been stopped running ads on Baidu. Taobao yesterday announced that over the past year after shield Baidu spider, the traffic continues to rise, up 180 percent. Taobao has been one of top three domestic sites. The growth of transaction volume is up 240 percent, as of September this year, monthly transaction volume has exceeded RMB 10 billion.

Baidu launches C2C marketplace “Youa”

Baidu, the world’s leading Chinese search engine, officially launched their consumer to consumer e-commerce platform “Youa”. Baidu has their own branded online payment system called BaiFuBao, to make purchases on Youa. Youa was previously available to 10,000 pre-approved sellers and 50,000 participants in closed beta testing.

Youa will compete with current C2C marketplace leader Alibaba’s Taobao.com which owns 57% of the marketshare. Alibaba recently announced that it will invest RMB5 billion (US$732 million) over the next five years to further strengthen the Taobao marketplace. Taobao has 80 million registered users and over 1 million sellers. Other C2C marketplaces include Paipai.com, and Eachnet.com. According to Piper Jaffray Youa will make up about 3-5% of Baidu’s estimated revenues in CY09.

B2B Industry in India on the rise

In 2006, BSG estimates that the combined revenues from business-to-business events, publishing and online services were approximately US$155 million with publishing accounting for US$58 million, exhibitions US$87 million and online accounting for US$10 million.
Of the US$58 million generated from B2B publishing, approximately US$29 million was generated from general business magazines. Advertising dollars in India remain heavily focused on TV (41%) and general print (49%). Total advertising expenditures were estimated to be US$3.7 billion in 2006.

India has 300 daily newspapers and despite a highly competitive environment, overall circulation increased 13% last year. The Economic Times continues to be the number one business newspaper by wide margin, while Business World is the top business magazine in India.
In 2006, there was a steady flow of newly launched business titles. According to the Indian Media Observer, 42 new magazines and newspapers were launched in the first seven months of 2006. The majority of those titles were non-English publications.

In the last year, a number of foreign publishers either expanded operations or launched new operations altogether. The Wall Street Journal formed a joint venture with the Hindustan Times. Reed Business Information teamed up with Infomedia India. Independent News and Media announced a joint venture with Jagran Prakashan Limited.

Media-focused private equity deals expanded rapidly in 2006. Overall private equity investment in India tripled in 2006 reaching US$7.46 billion - up from US$2.26 billion the year before. One of the larger deals was Blackstone’s US$275 million investment in Hyderabad-based print and media firm, Ushodaya Enterprises.

The events business in India continues to be constrained largely by its relatively limited infrastructure. Although, in the past two years, two new exhibition centres have opened - the first phase of the new Bangalore International Exhibition Centre in 2006 and India Expo Centre Expo XXI in 2005. As a result, the gross indoor space available increased by 19% rising from 213,000m2 to 253,000m2.

BSG research shows that just over 380,000 m2 of net space was sold in 2005 in India making the market around 9% the size of China’s. The Indian exhibition industry was worth around $64 million in terms of revenues earned by organizers.

B2B online businesses in India generated an estimated US$10 million in revenues in 2006. This figure is very small when compared with other markets and considering the potential size of the Indian market. CyberMedia, a key player in this small market, earned just US$1.1 million from their online operations which was just over 6% of revenues.

BSG maintains a ranking of the top 50 B2B websites in Asia using data from Alexa.com. Only five of the top fifty are Indian-based businesses. They are Indiamart.com, TradeIndia.com, Ciol.com, Go4worldbusiness.com and Indianexporters.com. Four of those five are supplier sourcing websites. The fifth, Ciol.com, is an information portal for IT professionals.

Alibaba Group To Spend $30M On Global Promotion

Alibaba Group said on Tuesday that it plans to spend $30 million promoting the company's name globally, reports qq.com. The company, parent to e-commerce giants Alibaba.com (1688.HK) and Taobao.com, intends to partner with commercial organizations in more than 20 countries worldwide for greater visibility.

Alibaba Launches E-Commerce Aid Program

On October 15, Jack Ma, CEO of e-commerce firm the Alibaba Group, launched the "10,000 Enterprises E-Commerce Project" for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The project will help SMEs in Zhejiang province withstand the current global financial crisis. As part of the project the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Finance will provide RMB 30 mln in support to member companies, and Alibaba will provide RMB 300 mln in e-commerce services. In addition the Economic and Trade Commission of Zhejiang Province, the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Finance and Alibaba will help 100,000 Zhejiang businesses adopt e-commerce technology. Wei Zhe, the CEO of the group's publicly listed subsidiary, Alibaba (1688.HK), has revealed that in addition to Zhejiang, similar projects will be launched in Guangdong, Chongqing, Tianjin and other areas, with some having already received support from local governments.

Taobao announces record transaction volume in a single month

Asia's largest online retailer Taobao.com's transaction volume exceeded 10 billion yuan in September, the company announced on Monday. Taobao.com will launch a series of e-commerce support measures to help SMEs develop domestic market.

Alibaba Group, the parent company of Taobao.com, announced recently it will invest 5 billion yuan in Taobao.com over the next five years.

An Essential Industry Report Summarizing the Key Developments and Trends in Japan's B2B Media Industry over the Past Year

DUBLIN, Ireland, Oct 14, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Research and Markets ( http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/eda33f/industry_report) has announced the addition of the "Industry Report - Japan Round-up" report to their offering.

This is an update report building on the last edition published in May 2007. It provides a summary of the key developments in Japan's B2B media industry over the past year. The report is segmented into exhibitions, online & mobile and print.

Despite its size, Japan's B2B media market appears to be viewed by many in the industry as a sleepy, slow-growth market and as a result, it does not always seem to receive the attention that its scale demands. Activities over the past 12 months suggest that this is beginning to change in the online B2B media market, particularly as China-focused companies begin to look towards Japan for new opportunities. Alibaba.com, Baidu and eBay have all made significant announcements recently regarding their commitment to the Japanese market.

Alibaba.com has launched an upgraded Japanese-language sourcing site through a new joint venture with Softbank Group. Earlier in 2008, Baidu formally launched its search services in Japan. eBay has crept back into the market through a deal with Yahoo Japan and Xinhua Finance extended an agreement with MSN Japan to provide data on China's equity and currency markets.

Key trends influencing the market in Japan include the decline of the PC as an Internet access device, the continued rise of mobile devices and the growing popularity of user-generated content. Yet, the conservative traditional Japanese media industry still appears uncertain how to address these trends although three of Japan's leading newspapers (Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun and the Nikkei Daily) did finally acknowledge the Internet by cooperating to launch a content-sharing website.

Japan's exhibitions industry is the second largest in the region behind China. In 2007, BSG estimates that nearly 2.2 million m2 were sold at 362 exhibitions in Japan -- nearly 17% of all of the space sold in Asia. The industry in Japan generated revenues of US$779 million last year. However, Japan's exhibition industry continues to significantly under-perform the rest of the Asian market recording just 1% growth in 2007. Preliminary figures, now being finalized by BSG suggest that the regional average was 14% and China recorded 21% growth last year.

Japan's exhibition market is mature and it looks likely to continue to grow more slowly than the rest of Asia through the end of 2009. This is largely due to the fact that other markets in Asia are going through a period of modernisation and expansion. High growth markets include India, Korea, China and Indonesia. Despite this, it should be noted that some foreign organisers such as Reed Exhibitions and CMP Asia continue to generate significant business in the Japanese exhibitions market.

Alibaba.com Stock Price Dived 85%

HANGZHOU, Oct 14, 2008 (SinoCast China IT Watch via COMTEX) -- EBAY Quote Chart News PowerRating -- The world's top online shopping Web site eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY Quote Chart News PowerRating) announced a job cutting of 1,600 employees on October 6, 2008. Meanwhile, Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group started a worldwide recruitment. Only a day later, Alibaba declared that CNY 5 billion would be inputted into affiliated C2C site Taobao.com in the future five years.

However, the stock price of Alibaba's B2B affiliate Alibaba.com Ltd. (SEHK: 1688) went down all the way, and closed at HKD 5.75 on October 9, diving 85% from the peak price of a year ago.
An unknown insider points out Alibaba's recruitment plan is to hide its real intention to reduce the stafftrimmer.

On September 22, an Internet user posted an article at his blog, saying that he was notified of news that Alibaba will cut more jobs after the National Day holiday, including veterans who have worked at the company for a long time.

Previously, on September 4, Alibaba suddenly announced a merger of website ads trade market Alimama into Taobao.com, shortly after which Alimama's 600-people team was largely reduced. The layoff seems to prove the former saying of Jack Ma, founder, board chairman, CEO of Alibaba Group, and board chairman of Alibaba.com, that an Internet winter is coming in China.
At the end of September, Alibaba posted the newest job listings on its site, recruiting talents engaged in sales, technology, and other fields. The recruitment will last from the fourth quarter of 2008 to July of 2009, revealed Peng Lei, chief human resources officer of Alibaba.

The winter in the IT industry caused the stock price drop and market cap shrink of Alibaba.com. Analysts reach consensus that Alibaba's recession was attributable to Chinese Yuan appreciation, energy and raw material markup, credit crunch, capital market downturn, and recent financial crisis in the US, which forced the company's B2B customers to lessen inputs in Internet promotions.

Alibaba has taken actions to consolidate affiliated resources through the mergers of Alimama into Taobao.com and China Yahoo into daily life information site Koubei.com. However, the whole market largely dragged down the company's performance, commented both Essence Securities Co., Ltd. and Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.

Not only Alibaba, but also other Internet companies, are all busy launching recruitment plans, including NetEase.com Inc. (Nasdaq: NTES), Baidu.com Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU), and Tencent Holdings Limited (SEHK: 0700), even online game giant Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. (Nasdaq: SNDA), which hold job fairs one after another at universities and colleges.

Meanwhile, foreign IT companies are carrying out layoffs. Besides eBay, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Nortel Networks Corporation (TSX: NT and NYSE: NT) respectively cut 2,500 and 2,100 jobs in the past year. HP, to acquire Electronic Data Systems (EDS), needs to reduce 25,000 posts, and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) cut 300 jobs for Internet advertising site DoubleClick.

Taobao VP Left

BEIJING - Taobao's VP and GM of B2C business Ruo Huang has announced his resignation, citing managerial differences with the company as his reason for departure.

According to Chinese reports, Huang is an industry veteran of 20 years and has stepped down because of clashing opinions between himself and Taobao over long-term positioning and operating strategies.

His departure comes at a time when competition is intensifying between the e-commerce site and Youa.com, Baidu’s newly launched online shopping mall that will take on Taobao, China’s clear market leader.

Just last week, Baidu further raised the stakes by appointing Yinan Li as its chief technology officer following a two-year search to fill the vacated post. However, a shake-up may still occur at Baidu amid rumours of chief scientific officer William Chang’s plans to resign because of his discontent with the job. Chang has denied the speculation.

Also last week, Alibaba Group moved to stymie the influence of Youa.com by investing Rmb 5 billion (US$732 million) into Taobao.com over the next five years. The announcement comes a month after Alibaba took a stand against Baidu by blocking the search engine from crawling its sites, including Taobao.com and Alimama.com.

Taobao claims more than 80 million registered users and one million sellers as of September, compared with Youa, which launched with 10,000 registered merchants at the end of September.

Baidu Aims at Alibaba With E-Commerce Site

BEIJING Chinese search engine Baidu has begun closed beta tests of an e-commerce site that the company hopes will directly rival market powerhouse Alibaba. Baidu has approved up to 10,000 accounts to be testers on the site, which will include business-to-consumer and business-to-business capabilities. According to reports, the site will also offer independent .en domain names, promotion opportunities and customised marketing tools to account holders.

Launching the site is in line with Baidu's recent attempts to expand beyond its search niche, where it enjoys 55 per cent market share.

Lonnie Hodge, CEO of Chinese search agency CultureFish Media, noted that while e-commerce "does not appear to be Baidu's element", it can succeed if it focuses on the needs of small businesses, which Alibaba has veered away from to cater to larger customers. "If it's really committed to the little guy and not wooed away by the megabrands,it'llbeOK,"hesaid.

Alibaba subsidiary Taobao recently unveiled a Shopping Mall site allowing brands to sell direct to consumers.

Copyright Haymarket Business Publications Ltd. Sep 4, 2008

(c) 2008 Media; Asia's Newspaper for Media, Marketing and Advertising. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

SMEs in China: Winter or spring?

shenzhen, guangdong, China - For many SMEs in China, 2008 has proven a disastrous year. Thousands upon thousands closed for soaring costs of production, mainly in materials and labor. The declining needs of overseas market are accompanied by the continuous rise in RMB. All signs seem to tell one fact - winter is coming.

What to do to help the remaining SMEs survive the winter becomes high on the agendas of many local governments, especially in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Fujian, three southern coastal provinces now contributing the largest share of export volume. On the table, e–commerce is recognized as an effective vehicle for SMEs to migrate competitiveness to the Internet.

While e-commerce as a way to help explore overseas market is yet to be used by a fare portion of SMEs, domestic renowned business-to-business (B2B) companies Alibaba, GlobalSources and ECVV(www.ecvv.com) all say they will go through the winter with stuck SMEs.

On July 23, Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba Group, composed an internal e-mail titled The Mission of Winter, calling up all his staff to get prepared for the winter. He opined that it was merely the start of an extremely long hard time.

Being cautious can’t be mistaken, but seeing a chance encourages more. ECVV,an innovative B2B company prominent in the South China market, eyes opportunities. “ECVV is not alone out there. Like Alibaba, its future hinges on that of SMEs. The problem most SMEs are facing, that is, how to fit into the new demands of global market, is also our main concern when we’re building marketing strategy. We will guide enterprises via our e-commerce platform and bring them more value with innovation, which is also our corporate culture.” Steven Chen, CEO of ECVV, said.

According to a government report, during the first half year of 2008, 67,000 SMEs collapsed, most of which are export-oriented enterprises in Zhujiang and Yangtze River Delta areas. The growing costs of production (materials and labor), the declining needs of overseas market and the fast appreciation of RMB are the main causes. As these factors are escalating, local governments have to consider post-Olympic development and many choose e-commerce as a breakthrough.

Compared to traditional channels to promote products in overseas markets, e-commerce features lower costs, easier application and quicker return. Plugged to Internet, SMEs become unlimited to geography or demography. Recently, coordinated by Zhejiang government, its enterprises have been promised to gain full promotion across the Alibaba website, considered the global leader in e-commerce.

Four years younger than Alibaba, by the end of 2007, ECVV had already garnered one million registered companies and two million products. This June, the mayor of Shenzhen found ECVV and decided to offer operation guidance and special funds, hoping local enterprises could benefit form it eventually.

For ECVV, there is more than one way to do e-commerce. It has launched three other websites: jobs, trade shows, and industry news. The job website will fuel SMEs with trade professionals. Trade shows combine online and offline marketing into one. And industry news reflects the latest markets. Besides, ECVV’s retailing B2C website ECVV(www.ecvvshopping.com has gone to market successfully, backed up by its main B2B site. Its aim is clear: the whole chain.

“I disagree it’s a winter for ECVV. Though our growth slows down, compared to the rate of 300% two years ago, now 70%-100% for this half year, the market is still large. Only a fraction of SMEs are using e-commerce to explore overseas market. So challenges and opportunities coexist. Now we’re ready.” Steven said confidently.

Alibaba Group to invest 5 bln yuan in Taobao

BEIJING, Oct 8 (Reuters) - The parent of China's top e-commerce firm Alibaba.com Inc. said on Wednesday it would invest 5 billion yuan ($733 million) in its online auction unit Taobao over five years to build its business.

Alibaba Group said the investment -- an additional 3 billion yuan on top an earlier 2 billion yuan injection -- would go towards adding people, equipment and improving technology at the firm known as China's eBay.

However, the five-year old Taobao, which executives said broke even for the first time in August and could turn a profit next year, will continue to offer its services for free to buyers and individual sellers.

"We have never made making a profit a central goal for the company," Daniel Zhang, the chief operating officer told reporters. "Rather, we are looking to improve service and provide a better platform for customers."

But some Alibaba investors balked at the large investment in a loss-making unit when uncertainty and risk are overwhelming global stock markets.

Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares slumped 15.8 percent on the day, underperforming the 11.5 percent fall on the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index .HSCE.

"Alibaba's fall was due primarily to the unfavourable environment for small and medium enterprises, which are Alibaba's main customers," said Kevin Tam, an analyst at China Everbright Securities based in Hong Kong.

Tam was, however, still upbeat about Taobao's long-term prospects in China's fast growing online market, as were company executives.

"Given the rapid growth of Internet use in China, we expect online shopping will become a mainstream Internet application in the near future," Jonathan Lu, Taobao president, said in a statement.

China is estimated to have more Internet users than any other country.

According to iResearch, China's online shopping market grew in gross merchandise volume to 56 billion yuan last year from 16 billion yuan in 2005.

The announcement comes after Alibaba.com posted a 159 percent rise in second quarter net profit, while warning that prospects were darkening as global woes caused small and medium-sized firms to cut spending. ($1=6.820 Yuan) (Reporting by Kirby Chien)