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SHANGHAI and SHENZHEN, China, February 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Dianping, a leading local life information and transaction platform in China, and Tencent Holdings Limited ("Tencent", SEHK stock code: 700), a leading provider of comprehensive Internet services in China, today jointly announced that they have entered into investment and cooperation agreements. Under these agreements, the two companies will cooperate deeply by integrating Dianping's high quality and rich content, user base and offline merchant network accumulated over the past 10 years with Tencent's leading social communications platforms, such as QQ and Weixin to build the leading Online-To-Offline ("O2O") ecosystem in China. The cooperation is expected to provide users with better experience of local services, further enhancing the two companies' platform advantages in China.
Dianping is a leading local life information and transaction platform in China. It has become an essential part of daily lives of millions of Chinese urban consumers. Dianping has enriched the lives of millions of consumers with information services such as reliable local merchant listing and consumer reviews, money saving deals such as group buying/e-coupon and other popular services such as online restaurant reservation and take out ordering. Tencent provides services to hundreds of millions of Internet users through its highly engaged social communications services and integrated platforms.
Through this strategic cooperation, Dianping's high quality local life content, such as merchant information, consumer reviews, discount, group buying, online restaurant reservation and take out ordering services, will be integrated with Tencent's social communications platforms such as QQ and Weixin, as well as other Tencent products. This integration will enable better user experience when accessing high-quality local life content across multiple platforms, allowing users to share local life experiences conveniently with their friends, and providing merchants efficient O2O solutions in the mobile Internet age.
Besides product cooperation, Tencent has invested in a 20% stake in Dianping. After this investment, Tao Zhang, CEO of Dianping, along with the founding management team, continues to maintain controlling stake of the company and Dianping will continue to operate independently under the current leadership team.
Tao Zhang, CEO of Dianping said, "Mobile Internet has profoundly changed the local life and O2O market. Dianping will adopt a more open approach in developing cooperation across platforms. Tencent has great assets in user base and social communication, along with innovation capability in product and technology. Cooperating with Tencent will help us provide better user experience and merchant service capability, accelerating our national expansion, especially in tier 3 and tier 4 cities."
Martin Lau, President of Tencent, said, "We are delighted to partner with Dianping, the clear leader in local business information services in China. We are excited to bring Dianping's breadth of local life content and services onto our platforms, providing QQ and Weixin users with integrated online-to-offline experiences, especially on mobile devices. And we look forward to helping local businesses extend their consumer reach and deepen their consumer interaction. This partnership once again reiterates our open platform strategy of working with vertical category leaders to create value for our users and our partners."
About Dianping
Founded in April 2003 in Shanghai, China, Dianping is a leading local life information and transaction platform in China. Through its website and mobile applications, Dianping provides local information service such as merchant listing and consumer reviews, as well as provides group buying, restaurant reservation and take out ordering services. Dianping has nearly 100 million active users across over 2,000 cities in China and has over 70% online traffic coming from mobile devices. Dianping has accumulated over 10 million POI (Point of Interest) and 30 million reviews.
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. Our 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 open platform.
Our company was founded in Shenzhen in 1998 and went public on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited on in 2004. The Company has been one of the 50 constituent stocks of the Hang Seng Index since June 10, 2008, under stock code 00700. We seek to evolve with the Internet by investing in innovation, providing a hospitable environment for our partners, and staying close to our users.
For more information, please visit www.tencent.com/ir
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to the business outlook, forecast business plans and growth strategies of Tencent and Dianping. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the companies and are stated herein on the basis of the outlook at the time of this press release. They are based on certain expectations, assumptions and premises, some of which are objective or beyond each company's control. These forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect and may not be realized in future. Underlying the forward-looking statements is a large number of risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be included in the companies' other public disclosure documents on their corporate websites.
Media Contacts:
Dianping
Candy Wang or Tammy Chen
Tel: +86 21 5355 9777 ext 2332 or 2333
Email: pr@dianping.com
Tencent
Jane Yip or Jerry Huang
Tel: +86 755 8601 3388 ext 81374 or 65333
Email: ir@tencent.com
