Xinhua Net Co., an online news platform majority owned by state-run Xinhua News Agency, plans to create a Xinhua-Alibaba partnership. The joint venture with units of Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. will transform the platform, aiming to cope with today’s mobile and smart media environment.
According to a statement issued by Xinhua Net, the partnership will be used as the technology platform for the firm’s future development in media storage, production, distribution and computing as it transforms itself into a media company based on mobile, social networking and intelligent distribution.
The statement did not clarify the type of products to be developed by the companies, but personalized news apps and features based on artificial intelligence might be included.
Xinhua News Agency units Xinhua Net, Xinhua Xinmei Culture Communication Co. and China Economic Information Service will form a joint venture called Xinhua Zhilian Technology Co. which will create a partnership with Hangzhou Ali Venture Capital Investment Co. and Hangzhou Shuwen Cloud Investment Partnership.
Hangzhou Ali Venture will be a limited partner in the joint venture. Currently, 80 percent of HAV’s stake is owned by Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma. The remaining 20 percent stakes are owned by Simon Xie, a close friend of Ma.
The joint venture will have a registered capital of RMB 490 million ($71 million), 40.8 percent of which will be contributed by Xinhua Net, 10.2 percent from Xinhua affiliates, and the remaining 49 percent will come from Alibaba units.
Xinhua Net said in the statement that the joint venture seeks to benefit from Alibaba’s resources in big data and services as well as its new media technology and data processing capabilities, to hasten the creation of new media technologies and use them in Xinhua Net.
With the formation of the Xinhua-Alibaba partnership, Xinhua Net is confident that it can compete in the mobile and smart media environment.