Two large Chinese tech startups Meituan and Dianping have agreed to a merger, forming the country’s largest online-to-offline (O2O) platform and presenting a formidable obstacle for would-be competitors in the hotly contested sector, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The alliance between Meituan.com, a Groupon-like lifestyle platform partly owned by Chinese Internet giant Alibaba, and Tencent-backed restaurant-review website Dianping.com will be officially announced as early as Thursday.
“The two companies merging would allow them to have absolute dominance of the group-buying market, and require less cash burn,” said Wang Weidong, an analyst at Internet consultancy IResearch in Beijing. “They will be putting a lot of pressure on competitors.”
Full content: The Wall Street Journal
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