Alibaba has bought AdChina, an integrated advertising platform in China for an undisclosed sum, as the newly listed ecommerce giant looks to boost its ad operations
The investment will help Alibaba boost its online and mobile advertising efforts through Alimama, the group’s advertising arm.
This unit sells marketing to merchants using Alibaba’s e-commerce sites like online marketplace Taobao and online retail platform Tmall.com.
“Alibaba’s strategic stake is expected to allow AdChina to enhance its competitive strengths in its existing businesses,” said an Alibaba statement.
Alibaba spent more than $6.2 billion on acquisitions in 2014, the same year as its record-setting $25 billion New York listing.
AdChina, founded in Silicon Valley in 2007, claims to be China’s largest multi-screen integrated advertising platform.
AdChina owned nearly 50% market share in 2012, according to research firm, iResearch.
Their online platform reached 486 million monthly unique visitors in December 2011 according to a report issued in February 2012 by DCCI, an internet data search agency in China, and their mobile platform provided our advertisers with access to 249 million monthly unique visitors in December 2011.
AdChina’s online publisher base comprised 409 publishers in China, including 20 of the top 50 websites in China based on rankings from Alexa.com, a third-party website, as of February 1, 2012.
According to its official website, AdChina reaches 97% of China internet users on a monthly basis. On mobile side, it integrated over 60 thousand mainstream APP resources covering over 80% mobile internet users in China.
