<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Chinese Internet giant Tencent announced today that it has taken a 20 percent stake in\u00A0Dianping.com, a Chinese daily deals and local reviews site that is often compared to US-based\u00A0Yelp, as it seeks to boost e-commerce on its messaging platforms QQ and Weixin (known as WeChat outside of China).\u00A0\r\n\r\nDianping has built itself up as the go-to platform in China for customer reviews since it was established in 2003. Other than providing local merchant listings and corresponding reviews, Dianping is also a group-buying platform that serves up money-saving deals.\r\n\r\nTencent says that it will integrate Dianping's content, user base and offline merchant network accumulated over the past 10 years with its instant messaging platform QQ and wildly popular chat app Weixin to build up a strong &amp;quot;online-to-offline&amp;quot; ecosystem in China. This means that Dianping content -- including merchant information, consumer reviews, discounted offers and group buying, as well as online restaurant reservations and take-out ordering services, can all be easily accessed by Weixin users.\r\n\r\nNotably, Tencent says that the integration will help provide merchants online-to-offline commerce solutions on mobile Internet, hinting that we could very soon see more merchants jumping on board Weixin to sell items directly within the app.\r\n\r\nIn August last year, the company\u00A0rolled out a long-awaited update\u00A0to\u00A0its mobile messaging app\u00A0Weixin\u00A0that incorporated payments. This paved the way for merchants to\u00A0set up corporate accounts for people to follow, while WeChat would handle &amp;quot;technical integration and support for these vendors, including page design and payment linkups.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nMartin Lau, the president of Tencent, says the company is looking forward to&amp;quot;helping local businesses extend their consumer reach and deepen their consumer interaction.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nTencent didn't disclose the amount it paid for its investment in Dianping, but\u00A0rumors previously suggested\u00A0that Tencent\u00A0bought a 20-25 percent stake at a valuation of $1.8 billion \u2013 $2 billion.\r\n\r\nEssentially, with its latest move, Tencent is upping the ante of m-commerce, seeking to drive mobile shopping right within its communication platforms -- which would pose a huge threat to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which is already stepping up its mobile social efforts. Alibaba's CEO\u00A0Jonathan Lu has\u00A0pledged to continue the e-commerce giant\u2019s string of big investments\u00A0as it continues focusing on improving its services for mobile.\r\n\r\nHeadline image via WeChat"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/asia/2014/02/19/tencent-invests-in-dianping-chinas-yelp-to-boost-e-commerce-on-its-wechat-messaging-app/>