SHANGHAI and SHENZHEN, China, Feb. 19, 2014
/PRNewswire/ -- Dianping, a leading local life information and
transaction platform in China, and
Tencent Holdings Limited
("Tencent", SEHK stock code: 700), a
leading provider of comprehensive Internet services in China, today jointly announced that they have
entered into investment and cooperation agreements. Under
these agreements, the two companies will cooperate deeply by
integrating Dianping's high quality and rich content, user base and
offline merchant network accumulated over the past 10 years with
Tencent's leading social communications platforms, such as QQ and
Weixin to build the leading Online-To-Offline ("O2O") ecosystem in
China. The cooperation is expected
to provide users with better experience of local services, further
enhancing the two companies' platform advantages in
China.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110831/CN60345LOGO
)
Dianping is a leading local life information and transaction
platform in China. It has become
an essential part of daily lives of millions of Chinese urban
consumers. Dianping has enriched the lives of millions of consumers
with information services such as reliable local merchant listing
and consumer reviews, money saving deals such as group
buying/e-coupon and other popular services such as online
restaurant reservation and take out ordering. Tencent provides
services to hundreds of millions of Internet users through its
highly engaged social communications services and integrated
platforms.
Through this strategic cooperation, Dianping's high quality
local life content, such as merchant information, consumer reviews,
discount, group buying, online restaurant reservation and take out
ordering services, will be integrated with Tencent's social
communications platforms such as QQ and Weixin, as well as other
Tencent products. This integration
will enable better user experience when accessing high-quality
local life content across multiple platforms, allowing users to
share local life experiences conveniently with their friends, and
providing merchants efficient O2O solutions in the mobile Internet
age.
Besides product cooperation, Tencent has invested in a 20% stake in
Dianping. After this investment, Tao Zhang, CEO of Dianping,
along with the founding management team, continues to maintain
controlling stake of the company and Dianping will continue to
operate independently under the current leadership team.
Tao Zhang, CEO of Dianping said, "Mobile Internet has profoundly
changed the local life and O2O market. Dianping will adopt a more
open approach in developing cooperation across platforms.
Tencent has great assets in user base
and social communication, along with innovation capability in
product and technology. Cooperating with Tencent will help us provide better user
experience and merchant service capability, accelerating our
national expansion, especially in tier 3 and tier 4
cities."
Martin Lau, President of
Tencent, said, "We are delighted to
partner with Dianping, the clear leader in local business
information services in China. We
are excited to bring Dianping's breadth of local life content and
services onto our platforms, providing QQ and Weixin users with
integrated online-to-offline experiences, especially on mobile
devices. And we look forward to helping local businesses extend
their consumer reach and deepen their consumer interaction. This
partnership once again reiterates our open platform strategy of
working with vertical category leaders to create value for our
users and our partners."
About Dianping
Founded in April 2003 in
Shanghai, China, Dianping is a
leading local life information and transaction platform in
China. Through its website and
mobile applications, Dianping provides local information service
such as merchant listing and consumer reviews, as well as provides
group buying, restaurant reservation and take out ordering
services. Dianping has nearly 100 million active users across
over 2,000 cities in China and has
over 70% online traffic coming from mobile devices. Dianping
has accumulated over 10 million POI (Point of Interest) and 30
million reviews.
About Tencent
Tencent uses technology to enrich
the lives of Internet users. Every day, hundreds of millions of
people communicate, share experiences, consume information, seek
entertainment, and shop online through our integrated platforms.
Our diversified services include QQ, Weixin and WeChat for
communications; Qzone for social networking; QQ Game Platform for
online games; QQ.com for information; as well as our eCommerce open
platform.
Our company was founded in Shenzhen in 1998 and went public on the Main
Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited on in 2004. The
Company has been one of the 50 constituent stocks of the Hang Seng
Index since June 10, 2008, under
stock code 00700. We seek to evolve with the Internet by investing
in innovation, providing a hospitable environment for our partners,
and staying close to our users.
For more information, please visit www.tencent.com/ir
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating
to the business outlook, forecast business plans and growth
strategies of Tencent and Dianping.
These forward-looking statements are based on information currently
available to the companies and are stated herein on the basis of
the outlook at the time of this press release. They are based on
certain expectations, assumptions and premises, some of which are
objective or beyond each company's control. These forward-looking
statements may prove to be incorrect and may not be realized in
future. Underlying the forward-looking statements is a large number
of risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these
risks and uncertainties may be included in the companies' other
public disclosure documents on their corporate websites.
Media Contacts:
Dianping
Candy Wang or Tammy Chen
Tel: +86 21 5355 9777 ext 2332 or 2333
Email: pr@dianping.com
Tencent
Jane Yip or Jerry Huang
Tel: +86 755 8601 3388 ext 81374 or 65333
Email: ir@tencent.com
SOURCE Dianping.com
