Ninetowns (NINE), one of the largest import and export software service providers in China, says that it is planning to spend more money to expand its Internet resources.
Wang Shuang, CEO of Ninetowns, told Chinese media that Ninetowns currently has about US$100 million in cash and is considering acquiring some medium and small B2B websites to. Wang said Ninetowns began to shift to the Internet in 2005 despite its great success in software services and it has formed a large scale outsourcing platform that covers all the major processes of the B2B businesses with tootoo.com as the main undertaker.
As early as in September 2006, Ninetowns invested US$5 million to its domestic international trade B2B platform and began the first step of its "Embracing the Internet" strategy. In May this year, it acquired e-commerce vertical search website yaphon.com and integrated it into tootoo.com. In addition, Ninetowns acquired a stake in 21food.cn. While making the acquisitions, Ninetowns have been constantly enlarging its B2B resources.