DALIAN Wanda group and Tencent Holdings Ltd. said Friday in Shenzhen that they will set up a 5 billion yuan (US$814 million) e-commerce joint venture with Baidu Inc., as the firms push into the high-growth e-commerce sector.

    The joint venture, to be registered in Hong Kong, will be 70 percent owned by privately held Wanda, while Chinese Internet giants Tencent and Baidu will hold 15 percent respectively, Wanda and Tencent said in separate press releases.

    China is the biggest e-commerce market in the world, with its No. 1 player, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., transacting more goods than Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc. combined.

    By teaming up with Tencent and Baidu, Wanda will become the biggest online-to-offline (O2O) e-commerce platform in the world, said Dong Ce, chief executive of the new venture.

    “O2O is the biggest pie in e-commerce ... this is just the beginning,” said Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda and the Chinese mainland’s wealthiest man with a net worth of US$16 billion, according to Forbes.

    The tie-up will also vie with Alibaba for a slice of that growing pie. The Tencent and Baidu rival is also quickly ramping up its mobile e-commerce and O2O offerings.(SD-Agencies)