Alibaba, Tencent spend billions in race to be one-stop online shop

Alibaba and Tencent spent more than $8 billion last year alone backing often strikingly similar ventures, as the Chinese Internet giants race to create online one-stop-shops to win the digital loyalty of a tenth of the world's population.

阿里巴巴和腾讯去年分别支出逾80亿美元用于支持非常相似的业务，因这两家中国网络巨擘努力创造在线一站式购物服务，以在中国赢得网络忠诚度。

Before China became the biggest smartphone market, there was little overlap between the businesses of e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, social networking firm Tencent Holdings Ltd and search engine provider Baidu Inc.

在中国成为全球最大智能手机市场之前，电商领军企业阿里巴巴、社交网络企业腾讯以及搜索引擎提供商百度的业务几乎没有重叠。

Now, as more and more Chinese use their phones for everything from shopping to booking restaurants, the three companies are increasingly stepping over each other-and investing in the same services-to attract the same users.

但目前随着越来越多的中国人使用手机进行购物到餐厅订位等应用，这三家企业都在互相涉足别家的领域，投资同样的服务，吸引相同的用户。

In little over a month, taxi-hailing apps Didi Dache, supported by Tencent, and Alibaba-funded Kuaidi Dache raised over half a billion dollars each, while U.S. taxi app Uber attracted an undisclosed sum from Baidu.

大约一个月前，腾讯支持的打车应用程序滴滴打车，阿里巴巴资助的快的打车分别融资逾5亿美元，而美国打车应用程序优步也从百度吸引到了资金，不过具体数字没有透露。

The next arena looks set to be group-buying services, where customers agree to buy a certain item or service at the same time to gain discounts. Baidu bought out Nuomi last year and Alibaba-backed Meituan on Monday said it raised $700 million, valuing the company at $7 billion.

下一个战场可能是团购，即客户同时购买某种物品或服务以获得折扣。百度去年买入糯米，而阿里巴巴支持的美团周一宣布，已融资7亿美元，使公司市值达到70亿美元。

Group-buying site Dianping plans to raise a similar amount, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, declining to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media. A Dianping spokeswoman declined to comment on the fundraising.

知情人士告诉路透，团购网站大众点评网计划融资同样数额；由于没有授权对媒体讲话，这些知情人士拒绝具名。大众点评网一位发言人拒绝就融资一事发表评论。

Fuelling the investment frenzy is the realisation that the platform with the most users will have by far the biggest returns, according to Taipei-based tech commentator Ben Thompson, who writes at stratechery.com.

为stratechery.com网站撰稿的台北科技业评论员Ben Thompson认为，他们意识到哪个平台拥有的用户数量最多，获得的回报也将会最大，这助长了这股投资热潮。

"Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu… don't want to miss out-or finish a distant second, which is just as bad – so they're investing heavily," he said.

阿里巴巴、腾讯与百度…都不愿缺席–或者在竞争中远远居次，因为这种情况同样糟糕–于是他们大量投资，”他表示。

Asked about its investments, an Alibaba spokeswoman said its strategy is focused on increasing users and expanding its products and services. Tencent did not respond to several requests for comment and Baidu declined to comment.

被问及投资时，阿里巴巴一名女发言人表示，该公司的策略是专注于提升用户数量，拓展产品与服务。腾讯未回应多次采访要求，百度则不予置评。

Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Tencent chief Pony Ma have a history of one-upmanship in sectors ranging from gaming to microblogs. That rivalry aside, all online firms are looking over each other's shoulders to ensure they don't miss out on the next big thing.

阿里巴巴创办人马云与腾讯创办人马化腾，无论从游戏到微网志等领域，两人一向不落人后。撇开这种竞争关系不谈，所有的网路企业其实都紧盯着对手的一举一动，以确保没有错过下一个发展重点。

"They have hundreds of people scouring the startup universe in China, India, the United States," said Gary Rieschel, managing partner at Chinese investment firm Qiming Venture Partners.

他们有数百名人力在评估中国、印度与美国的创业公司，”中国投资公司启明创投管理合伙人Gary Rieschel表示。

A lot of the money major companies invest in Chinese startups is spent on building up user numbers via promotions and marketing. In the first quarter of 2014, Tencent said marketing costs jumped 93 percent to 1.9 billion yuan, in large part because of subsidies for Didi Dache.

大企业投资于中国创业公司的资金中，有许多是花费在促销与市场营销活动，藉此提升用户数量。腾讯表示，该公司2014年第一季市场营销费用跳增93%，至19亿元人民币，其中很大一部分是对滴滴打车的补助。

Investing big in a service, however, doesn't guarantee it will succeed. "It's right to question what are the limits of this," said BDA's Clark. "Not all these people can win."

不过，对一项服务的大量投资，并不保证能够成功。“对这种投资的限度提出质疑是正确的，”北京顾问公司BDA董事总经理Duncan Clark表示，“这些人不见得都能成为赢家。”