The Chinese online store Alibaba, known in the Benelux for its consumer version AliExpress, is said to invest more than nine billion euros in China Unicom together with other companies. That provider is the middle of three state providers in China in terms of size.
With the investments, China Unicom would like to become competitive again. In addition to Alibaba, Tencent is also participating. Baidu, another major Chinese company, attended the talks but dropped out for unknown reasons, Reuters news agency reported. The investment totals 70 billion yuan, which is currently approximately 9.1 billion euros. Through the issuance of shares, China Unicom wants to raise another fifty billion yuan.
According to Reuters, China Unicom is known as a provider that has been slow to respond to developments in the telecom industry, while more people are said to be working than necessary. All providers in China are state-owned. The other two in the top three are China Mobile and China Telecom.
It is the largest investment by companies in a Chinese provider to date. The investment is made through the listing of China Unicom on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The companies involved have not confirmed the investment.