The US retail chain Walmart Stores, Inc the world’s largest company by revenue, has maneouvred into the driver’s seat of China’s burgeoning e-commerce market.
Walmart now owns one of China’s three largest e-commerce portals, Yihaodian.com (YHD.com), which enjoys annual double-digit growth, and in 2014, turned over US$1.9 billion.
Walmart first invested in YHD.com in 2011 after it decided to abandon its own plan to run a website in China. The US retail giant lifted its stake in YHD.com to 51 per cent in 2012, and in July this year acquired the remaining 49 per cent from Ping An Insurance and the founders of the website — former Chairman, Yu Gang, and former CEO, Liu Junling.