Reuters: Technology News: Alibaba buys 18 percent stake in Sina's Weibo for $586 million

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Alibaba buys 18 percent stake in Sina's Weibo for $586 million Apr 29th 2013, 12:54 Tweet Share this Email Print Related News REFILE-BRIEF-SINA says Alibaba buys 18 pct stake in Weibo 8:20am EDT Sina says Alibaba buys 18 pct stake in Weibo for $586 mln 8:16am EDT Alibaba makes major mobile push with 1 billion yuan fund Mon, Apr 15 2013 China's Tencent says fees for mobile chatting app unlikely: radio Sun, Apr 7 2013 A man holds an iPhone as he visits Sina's Weibo microblogging site in Shanghai May 29, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Carlos Barria Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:47am EDT (Reuters) - Sina Corp, China's largest Internet portal and media website, said e-commerce company Alibaba Group has bought an 18 percent stake in its microblogging service Weibo for about $586 million, valuing Weibo at more than $3 billion. The company has also granted Alibaba the option to increase its stake in Weibo to 30 percent within a stipulated time, which it did not specify. Sina's U.S.-listed shares jumped 17 percent to $58.85 in premarket trade on Monday. Alibaba and Weibo will work on user account connectivity, data exchange, online payments and online marketing, Sina said in a statement. Sina has been trying to monetize Weibo as rival Tencent Holdings' mobile social messaging product, WeChat, cuts into the popularity of the Weibo service. Unlisted Alibaba, controlled by Chinese internet entrepreneur Jack Ma, runs Taobao Marketplace, China's largest e-commerce website with a consumer focus, and Alibaba.com, the country's largest business-to-business commerce platform. It has a business model that revolves around online advertising and subscription fees. Alibaba's investment in Weibo should drive web traffic to Taobao and provide more advertising revenue to Weibo. The alliance is expected to generate about $380 million in advertising and social commerce services revenue for Weibo over the next three years, Sina said. (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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