Ecommerce platform Provider JD.com has made a US$168 million investment in Chinese cloud company
Kingdee International Software Group . The company, which was established in 1998, provides China’s second largest cloud-based ecommerce platform, following Alibaba. The investment gives JD.com 10% ownership of Kingdee.
Kingdee, which has around three million corporate customers and is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, has headquarters in Shenzhen, China. The investment will be used to strengthen Kingdee's cloud computing activity which is geared towards larger companies. News of the investment triggered a HK$5.96 (US$ 0.77) rise in Kingdee's Hong Kong-listed shares. Its cloud activity generated 106 million yuan (US$17.08 million) in 2013 and analysts predict that will increase to 594 million yuan (US$95.7) by 2017.
The companies will cooperate on providing cloud-based (ERP) software to SMEs. The move comes in the wake of last month's announcement of an agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that makes Kingdee's ERP software available through the AWS platform.
"We are delighted to be partnering with JD.com, which has developed industry-leading proprietary e-commerce and logistics technologies," explained the CEO and Chairman of Kingdee, Shaochun Xu. "This is a key milestone in Kingdee's development history. We will take this opportunity to leverage both companies' large customer and user bases, accelerate the development of Kingdee's cloud offering and expand our one-stop shop cloud services. Collaboration with JD.com will further allow Kingdee to take our enterprise solutions to the next level by integrating JD.com's ecommerce and logistics vertical solutions. This planned strategic partnership will position us to provide leading cloud-based ERP solutions and continue to lead the enterprise mobile Internet market for years to come."
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