Around the Net
Alibaba to Spend $161 Million to Back App Development
- streetinsider, Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:30 PM
A billion dollars here, a billion renminbi there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money being spent to develop China's mobile-commerce market. Last month, Alibaba Group and Ant Financial Services Group said they would spend nearly $1 billion on a joint venture aimed at growing the market in China for local services that can be ordered and paid for using smartphones. To back up that effort, Alibaba today said it would sink RMB 1 billion ($161 million) into an investment fund to encourage independent software developers to build a new generation of smartphone apps that leverage the ecosystem of China's largest e-commerce company. Along with financial support, Alibaba today unveiled a new program, dubbed Shengyi 1.0, that offers local-services app developers technical tools and other forms of support. Alibaba wants independent app-makers to incorporate a range of Alibaba technologies such as location-based services, targeted marketing and online payment into apps for so-called "on-demand" local services.
