Alibaba Group Holding announced the purchase of Chinese mobile app developer and third-party app store Wandoujia on Tuesday.
Wandoujia will be incorporated into Alibaba's mobile division as the Internet giant works to further expand into the mobile app market.
Launched in April 2010, Wandoujia was one of the first third-party Android app stores in China and has approximately 500 million users, according to an announcement Alibaba sent to the Global Times.
The app developer, along with Chinese Internet giants Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings, was ranked in the top five for products in a study of third-party app stores carried out by Beijing-based market research platform BigData-Research.
According to a media report in May, third-party app stores are one of the major channels for user app downloads, with 62.9 percent of users accessing apps through third-party stores.
Combining Wandoujia with its own mobile business will help Alibaba develop new quality content and improve user-based marketing strategy, Yu Yongfu, the head of the group's mobile division, was quoted as saying in the announcement.
Wandoujia's business model has been aimed at helping users find high-quality apps and mobile games, Wang Junyu, co-founder of the mobile app engine, noted in the announcement.
However, the company needs a new partnership to enhance its brand and enlarge its channels, Wang stated.
In this regard, Alibaba offers advantages of a larger customer base and more content data, which will help Wandoujia -develop more personalized services. Wandoujia represents the latest acquisition for Alibaba which has been actively expanding its mobile business in recent years.
The company bought Chinese navigation app AutoNavi in April 2014 for $1.5 billion.
They have also purchased the country's leading mobile browser UCWeb, according to their website.
The integration of Wandoujia is considered another step forward for the company's strategic mobile business plans.
Alibaba did not reveal the purchase price for Wandoujia in their announcement.
