Yahoo China pulls plug on email, news for charity focus

Yahoo! China announced the official closure of its Chinese e-mail, news and community services on September 1, saying the internet group will instead focus its resources on charity projects.

Yahoo! China announced the termination of its services as part of the agreement with Alibaba, saying the team would "shift focus on public welfare projects" in cooperation with now.taobao.com, the philanthropic arm of its parent company, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

Yahoo! China has been a part of Alibaba since 2005, when Yahoo! Inc. invested $1 billion in Alibaba.com, giving Yahoo an approximate 40 percent stake in the company with 35 percent voting rights, making it Alibaba's largest strategic investor, according to alibaba.com.

Alibaba bought back half of Yahoo's 40 percent stake for $7.1 billion in 2012, which included $800 million in preferred stock; a deal which analysts say is paving the way for the Chinese company's upcoming IPO in the US, ft.com reported.

Yahoo announced in April it would terminate its e-mail service on August 19 and advised users to migrate to the Alibaba e-mail service Aliyun. Email redirects would continue until December 31, 2014.

Although Yahoo! China did not perform as expected over the eight years under Alibaba, Yahoo's $1 billion investment in 2005 is paying off, as Alibaba is shooting for a valuation of $100 billion, Web news service Bianews reported.