Renren has bought online video sharing site 56.com for $80 million, as the Chinese social networking site looks to boost user engagement.
“The acquisition of 56.com will help Renren further meet user needs of recording and sharing their lives through video format on our social network,” Renren chief executive Joseph Chen said in a statement.
Founded in 2005, Guangzhou-based 56.com is a video-sharing website where users can upload, view and share videos.
Renren announced last month it had signed an agreement with Microsoft’s joint venture instant messaging firm, MSN, to cooperate in areas of instant messaging and social networking.
China is the world’s largest Internet market by users with around 480 million netizens.
Around 230 million of them use social networking sites and 385 million of them use instant messaging.