Amazon is said to be seeking a tie-up for its long-suffering Chinese business with online market place Kaola, a company owned by tech giant NetEase. The e-commerce market in China is dominated by Jack Ma's Alibaba and Richard Liu's monolith JD.Com.
This reminds me of the time when Uber bowed down to domestic rival Didi Chuxing; a move which actually benefitted Uber massively as they no longer had to burn cash, and in return they owned a stake in a bigger, more diversified ride-hailing business. The only distinction here is that Amazon has the know-how and Kaola has the contacts.
Prior to this prospective deal, Amazon's China efforts have only netted them 1% of the Chinese e-commerce market which is a poor show considering the fact that Amazon has been operating in China for all of a decade! We can only hope the new tie-up means shaking up the competition and gaining some market share.