By Jonty Dixon

Alibaba will soon own the entirety of China’s second-largest delivery company, Ele.me (the blue one), in an estimated USD9.5 billion deal announced last week. Alibaba’s Ant Financial, which already owned around 43 percent of the company, decided to buy out the rest of the company’s stock. 

Experts have seen this move as further intensifying the competition between tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, WeChat’s parent company. Tencent owns food-delivery service Meituan-Dianping, Ele.me’s largest competitor. Meituan-Dianping was valued at USD30 billion last Fall, according to Bloomberg.

Alibaba’s latest purchase is part of a broader shift towards brick-and-mortar assets. Last year, the company began opening Hema markets – offline supermarkets where Alipay users can pick out their groceries in person and have them delivered to their home. 

Ele.me owns original food-delivery frontrunner Baidu Waimai as of August of last year. 

[Image via AppsEconomy]

Click "Read more" (阅读原文) below for more China News.