First, forgive me as I have been distracted by my work with Yahoo! for the last year which left me little time to update Trade Media Blog despite there being so much activity in the industry. Ill do my best to get back into the swing of things but lets start with an update on [...]

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For those of you who did not read my June 17th post and still don’t know Taobao.com it is China’s version of eBay and commands 81.5% market share of China’s online retail market with over US$14 billion in gross merchandise value expected this year.
Alibaba Group, which initially developed Taobao.com with Softbank, owns 100% of the [...]

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I wrote back in May about Alibaba Group and its many well positioned assets that make this still private company one to watch as it is highly unlikely that anyone will beat them.
Pacific Epoch has shared the latest China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) online shopping statistics for 1H-08 and Alibaba Group’s Taobao.com continues to [...]

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While the trade media industry is filled with hundreds (if not thousands) of companies copying the original B2B online trade marketplace business model established by Global Sources in 1995, it is refreshing to see a unique player building marketshare in this space.
MFG.com is a B2B online trade marketplace focused on manufacturing. The site supports over [...]

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It has been a busy week for Alibaba.com with a flurry of news releases. TradeMediaBlog is happy to bring them to you below with comments.
Alibaba.com formerly announced the often referred to Joint Venture with Softbank. This US$20 million deal (Softbank 65%; Alibaba.com 35%) will hopefully put some marketing/sales muscle behind a site that has been [...]

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China’s National Statistics Bureau released data this week showing that inflation grew by 8.5% in April which is its highest level in nearly 10 years.
As a reminder, February’s inflation rate was 8.7%, the highest in 12 years, and March was 8.3%.
The government is doing its best to cool this trend by:
1. Requiring banks to set [...]

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Lots of online media news in the last week that I will try to capture below along with a some comments. Forgive me for this long posting but worth a read!
On May 6th, Alibaba.com reported great Q1-08 numbers that beat all analysts’ expectations. The company saw net income double Y-O-Y (US$43 million) and sales increased [...]

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In January, I reported on TradeMediaBlog that Global Sources was offering for the very first time a low cost entry package for their export marketing services which was a concern for Alibaba.com.
It now seems that these new packages are starting to gain traction.
South China Morning Post reported today that Global Sources’ new pricing plan is [...]

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Tencent (0700.HK), China’s leading provider of Internet and mobile / telecommunications value-added services, is now the official and exclusive Internet sponsor of the 2010 World Expo.
Why is this significant?
- The World Expo has a 150 year history.
- The next World Expo will be held in Shanghai May 1-Oct 31, 2010 and is expecting over 70 [...]

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China continues to grow at jaw dropping levels across many different industries and the most recent mobile phone, internet and e-commerce data does not fail to impress.
According to consulting and research firm, BDA, China has surpassed the United States as the world’s largest internet population with over 216 million users. Based upon current growth trends, [...]

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