March 3, 2005

China's second largest B2B e-commerce portal, HC360 (http://www.hc360.com) will soon launch an English-language trading platform.

Wang Lijie, Marketing Supervisor for HC360, told Interfax. No date for the launch, however, has yet to be set.

"This English platform is one of the most important marketing strategies for HC360 in 2005," Wang said. "Our CEO Guo Fansheng will announce the official launch."

HC360 was founded in 1992 specializing in providing commercial information and business trading platforms. HC360 and industry leader Alibaba.com are the main two players on the Chinese B2B market.

According to HC's last financial release, the company recorded total revenues of RMB 322.223 mln (USD 38.92 mln) in the first three quarters of 2004, up 40.50% year-on-year.

The company introduced an online payment tool named "Transaction Center" in March of 2004, and began charging netizens a service fee six months later for using the online payment tool. This services has brought the company more than RMB 22 mln (USD 2.66 mln) in corresponding revenues.

"Alibaba enjoys a great advantage on the international market and in most developed areas of China, such as the Yangtze Delta region. But HC360 has a much large user base in northern China," Wu noted.

Alibaba has already launched its English language international trading platform for some time. PR manager indicated. "The international platform introduced clients with focus on foreign trade at present."

"Alibaba's trading platform includes English and Japanese language versions, and contributed to about 50% of our B2B turnover," Alibaba PR manager Kong Fei told Interfax. "But this international platform has a potential to generate a revenue even higher than Chinese language version of our B2B platform."

Source: Interfax