Report: QQ Buy to Open E-Commerce Platform to 1,000 Businesses

Tencent’s (HKG:0700) big push into e-commerce is continuing with the rumors in Chinese media that the company is opening up its QQ Buy online store to 300 businesses to open up virtual storefronts. By the end of the year, 1,000 major B2C sellers will be on the QQ Buy site. It’ll be a challenge to market leader Tmall, and also the gadgets-oriented 360Buy.

While Tencent has confirmed that it’ll make a major financial investment in its QQ Buy platform to help businesses get onto it this year – said to be 1 billion RMB (US$158.7 million) – it has not been revealed which brands or major wholesalers will open up on the B2C site. When QQ Buy first launched in October of last year, it was restricted to consumers in just a few cities, but now that has opened up to users nationwide. Some other e-tailers already use QQ Buy as a storefront – such as WalMart-backed YiHaoDian, and the online clothes store V+.

China’s e-commerce landscape is a two-horse race between the afore-mentioned Tmall and 360Buy. Tencent’s efforts are coming late, but are backed by the web giant’s huge financial clout. Just yesterday we reported that Tencent’s market cap has hit $66 billion and had thereby surpassed Facebook in terms of total value.