subject: The Road of Tencent International Expansion [print this page] The Road of Tencent International Expansion
America Online (AOL) has announced that the sale of its ICQ instant messaging service stepped into the last round of bidding, there are three companies left, including Tencent.
According to informed source from China wholesaleepathchina, the other two companies bidding for ICQ are Russia DST Group and ProfMedia. ProfMedia bid price of $ 120 million,and DST bid slightly more than $ 120 million. Tencent bid is still unknown. epathchina analyst said that the if the Tencent acquisition of ICQ is successful at last, it indicates that the apprentice bidden a master, it will help Tencent to expand the international market.
ICQ was one of the earliest instant messaging softwares,and once a leader in the field of instant messaging.It currently has 42 million active users, mainly in overseas markets outside the United States ,such as Germany, Russia, Eastern Europe and Israel, of which there are 18.5 million users from Russia, accounting for 44% of total number of users. Tencent QQ, formerly called OICQ, is also a copy of the mode of ICQ operation and expand the development. After the intervention of the ICQ, OICQ was renamed Tencent QQ.
America Online in 1998 spent 287 million on the acquisition of ICQ, and also paid their team an extra 1.2 billion acquisition costs. However, after the acquisition, ICQ was inserted a lot of built-in search advertising and become bloated, which resulted that subscriber growth started to slow down. for the sale of the ICQ business, it is certain that, regardless of which company acquire it successful, their payment will be much lower than the amount that AOL paid in 1998.
However, in February this year, news was released that Tencent intends to bid for ICQ message, but Tencent largest shareholder, with 35.2% of Tencent shares, the largest media company in Africa, Naspers' CEO Marcus Bai Keer immediately said that the company did not contact with AOL about the acquisition of ICQ instant messaging service. China bulk wholesale electronics store epathchina analysis noted that, ICQ, in the process of 14 years development, has accumulated a lot of users.Its international brand and users is very valuable for Tencent, at the same time ,Tencent hand enough cash, compared with the other two Russian companies, Tencent also has the experience of collaboration with AOL, therefore, Tencent has a larger odds in the bid.
