Alibaba, Tencent spend billions in race to be China’s one-stop online shop

Alibaba and Tencent spent more than USD8 billion last year alone backing often strikingly similar ventures, as the Chinese Internet giants race to create online one-stop-shops to win the digital loyalty of a tenth of the world’s population.

Before China became the biggest smartphone market, there was little overlap between the businesses of e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, social networking firm Tencent Holdings Ltd and search engine provider Baidu Inc.

Now, as more and more Chinese use their phones for everything from shopping to booking restaurants, the three companies are increasingly stepping over each other – and investing in the same services – to attract the same users.