Rumor: Alibaba, Sina Continue Partnership Talks

BiaNews, 11/23/12

On November 22, a source close to core Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) management revealed that the Chinese internet company's microblogging platform Sina Weibo is in talks with e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba, continuing earlier partnership discussions between the two companies. The source said Sina chairman and CEO Charles Chao had led a team from Sina Weibo to visit Alibaba as early as 2010 to discuss business partnerships.

Links from Sina Weibo to Alibaba's C2C & B2C e-commerce site Taobao account for 2.8% of the platform's outbound traffic, which mainly consists of links to news sites and discussion forums. Traffic from Sina Weibo to Taobao has conversion rates of 4%, far lower than the 10% conversion rates of shopping SNS sites Mogujie and Meilishuo. The latter two sites have a combined user base of less than 50 mln users, while Sina Weibo boasts a user base of more than 400 mln registered users, 10% of whom are active users.

Editor's Note: For more background on this topic, please see "Rumor: Impasse on Pricing Derails Alibaba-Sina Deal" MD 11/21/12 issue.

Keywords: Charles Chao e-commerce Internet Sina microblogging Alibaba Group

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