Yahoo has shut down its portal, news sites and community services in China, handing over to partner Alibaba to run internet services in the country. The move follows the closure of its email service last month, and the Yahoo China home page now redirects users to a site run by Alibaba, which manages Yahoo’s Chinese […]
Yahoo has shut down its portal, news sites and community services in China, handing over to partner Alibaba to run internet services in the country.
The move follows the closure of its email service last month, and the Yahoo China home page now redirects users to a site run by Alibaba, which manages Yahoo’s Chinese operation.
In a farewell message which appears before the redirect, the firm says it is “adjusting its operations strategy”.
Yahoo has a significant stake in Alibaba, the business-to-business online retailer which has been licensed to run its Chinese services.
Yahoo’s remaining 24% stake in the Chinese company, which is expected to go public within the next two years, is estimated to be worth about $14 billion.
Yahoo paid $1 billion for a 40% stake in Alibaba in 2005, before the company grew into the backbone of China’s rapidly expanding e-commerce market.
In September, Alibaba closed an initial repurchase of its shares from Yahoo for $7.6 billion. As part of the deal, Yahoo agreed that Alibaba Group can continue to operate Yahoo China’s brand for up to four years.
Alibaba Group’s decision to gradually cease operating its Yahoo-branded properties is a reminder of the struggles that major U.S. Internet companies–including Google, eBay and Amazon–have faced in China due to confluence of factors including government censorship, failure to localize effectively and the rapid rise of Chinese companies like Baidu and Tencent.
Social media services such as the Twitter-like platform offered by Weibo are hugely popular in China despite being openly censored.
