QQ Parent Is Buying Up

As featured in Peoples Daily online. Tencent Inc has established a fund of 5 billion yuan (US$760 million) to invest in the Internet, part of its open-platform strategy in the mobile and Internet sectors, China’s No. 1 dot-com firm said yesterday.The Shenzhen-based company aims to invest the fund within two or three years, mainly in online games, social networking, mobile Internet, e-commerce and new media.

“Through the investment, we show our commitment to keeping an open strategy,” Liu Zhiping, Tencent’s president, said in an e-mail statement.

Tencent aims to promote its “open platform” strategy through the fund, industry insiders said.

Tencent’s fund will operate like those of other information technology firms, including Intel Capital, Google Ventures and Nokia Growth Partners, and this will boost the whole industry, the company said.

Tencent is widely regarded as a threat to small innovation firms because of its dominant market position, especially after its fierce fight against Internet security firm Qihoo 360 last year.

Now Tencent dominates the Chinese online game market and has the country’s most popular instant messaging tool, QQ, with more than 1 billion registered users.

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