BEIJING, Sept. 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Ting Ting Group ("DXY"), the largest online healthcare service community in China, today announces that it will receive a strategic investment of US$70 million from Tencent Holdings Limited ("Tencent", SEHK 00700), a leading provider of comprehensive Internet services in China, in exchange for a minority equity stake of DXY on a fully diluted and as converted basis. The transaction is expected to close in the near future.
Following the closing of this investment, DXY will work with Tencent on a series of initiatives to bring its services to Tencent's various platforms, including exploring possible services to integrate into Weixin and Mobile QQ. DXY has unique medical resources and the largest network of doctors in China. Its team is made up of medical and life science professionals with deep expertise and solid understanding of the healthcare sector in China.
DXY plans to invest the capital received from this investment and other resources into developing healthcare products for doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and consumers. Its priority is to create better products and content for doctors in China and to bring doctors and pharmaceutical (medical device) companies together on a single platform that can be accessed through multiple channels and allows for a more legally compliant and effective way of exchanging ideas and knowledge. Leveraging big data technology, DXY will also provide more accurate and higher value human resource solutions to healthcare companies and medical institutions in China.
Moving from servicing doctors and healthcare companies to consumer healthcare is one of DXY's goals. This is also why DXY chose to raise capital even when it is already earning sizable profits currently. In the past year, DXY has been investing in and exploring opportunities related to consumer healthcare. DXY's products, such as the Family Medicine App and DXY Doctor, accumulated millions of users even without spending on marketing. Looking ahead, DXY plans to launch products in three categories -- Weixin-based products, mobile apps, and Web-based products -- to continue to provide reliable medical and healthcare information and services to consumers.Given the prevalence of fake and inaccurate medical and healthcare information in China, which negatively impacts consumers, DXY is especially focused on ensuring the "reliability" of the information it provides through its platform. This is also the reason behind DXY's decision to enter into consumer healthcare.
DXY also plans to experiment with O2O services, providing doctors in China with a platform and resources to carry out their medical practice on the go thereby fully unlocking the value of their expertise. There will also be O2O services aimed at patients that offer patients a better user experience.
DXY's founder and President, Stanley Li, said, "Growth in the healthcare industry is much slower compared to other industries. Its business value relies on professional and in-depth cultivation, not just capital operations. Both DXY and Tencent attach great importance to the social value of and responsibilities associated with healthcare industry. What's more gratifying is that Tencent and DXY appreciate and acknowledge each other's values. In addition, our resources supplement each other. For DXY, in particular, the collaboration implies greater potential for healthcare business development through optimal utilization of Weixin and Mobile QQ platforms."
Martin Lau, President of Tencent, said, "Tencent is an integrated Internet services company with a strong sense of social responsibility, we have been closely following the healthcare industry for a while. With a rich pool of over two million professional doctors, we understand DXY is an industry leader in the healthcare industry. Tencent is capable of connecting DXY's talented pool of healthcare professionals and their medical knowledge database with tens of millions of users. This improves the ease of which our users can access healthcare information and professional medical help. Tencent lives out its commitment to deliver socially reliable products by providing more valuable, high-quality services to both doctors and consumers in China."
Previously, DXY completed two rounds of investments from DCM and Shunwei China Internet Fund. Following this round of investment, DXY's founding management team will continue to have a majority stake in DXY and have a majority in its board of directors. David Feng, Vice President of DXY and Richard Peng, Vice President of Tencent, will become DXY's board members.
About Tencent
Tencent uses technology to enrich the lives of Internet users. Every day, hundreds of millions of people communicate, share experiences, consume information, seek entertainment, and shop online through our integrated platforms. Tencent's diversified services include QQ, Weixin and WeChat for communications; Qzone for social networking; QQ Game Platform for online games; QQ.com for information; as well as our eCommerce services.
Tencent was founded in Shenzhen in 1998 and went public on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2004. Tencent has been one of the 50 constituent stocks of the Hang Seng Index since June 10, 2008, under stock code 00700. Tencent seeks to evolve with the Internet by investing in innovation, providing a hospitable environment for its partners, and staying close to its users.
About DXY
DXY (DXY.cn) is the world's largest online professional community of physicians, medical institutions, healthcare providers, and life science researchers. It was established in 2000 and currently has over 4 million registered members in China and other countries. DXY's mission is to facilitate communication, information sharing, and collaboration among medical professionals within all specialties of clinical medicine, basic medical research, life sciences, and pharmaceutical sciences.
