Always in Search of Ad Clicks, Qihoo Invests in Online Gaming Portal

It has been revealed by an executive at Qihoo 360 (NYSE:QIHU), the Chinese web portal and anti-virus vendor, that the company has invested in the gaming news site 2366.com. Since the exec in question, Qihoo’s Guo Haibin, is now installed as the VP at 2366, it seems that a majority stake – or a total buy-out – has occurred. Mr. Guo said that the deal happened back in August of last year, but has been made public only this week. The financial details of the deal have not been revealed.

The Sichuan-based MengWang company that started 2366 in September 2009 has grown it into a major gaming portal, featuring aggregated news, downloads, and paid links to gaming titles. 2366 doesn’t host any actual games and its revenue model seems to be the same ad clicks one from which Qihoo generates most of its revenue.

2366.com might well be desirable for its advertising base, as well as to drive traffic to Qihoo’s own online gaming service at wan.360.cn. We saw a similar move by Changyou (NASDAQ:CYOU), one of China’s biggest online gaming providers, when it bought the gaming portal 17173.com last November.

Qihoo’s Q4 2011 financials revealed that revenue from its web gaming operations hit US$17.18 million.

[Source: Techweb – article in Chinese]