Alibaba Group, operator of Yahoo China, plans to acquire "a number of Internet companies" to help grow its core businesses Alibaba.com and Taobao.com.

"Acquisitions will become an important way to expand our business and we just appointed the right person in charge of this matter," said Jin Jianghang, vice president of Alibaba Group.

Tian Jian, former executive general manager of Yahoo China, has been appointed as Alibaba's vice president in charge of the newly established investment department for his knowledge in acquisitions.

Targets will be Websites that can help Alibaba.com and Taobao.com interact with users and attract surfers to its online markets. It will likely include well-known sites such as Dianping.com, known for its restaurant reviews, and Douban.com, which provides opinions on books, music and movies, Alibaba said in a statement.

But Alibaba officials said the two names are examples and not necessarily actual targets.

Alibaba also said Yahoo China has entered a period of healthy growth. Alibaba acquired Yahoo China's operations in 2005 in a deal in which Yahoo took a 40 percent stake in Alibaba in exchange for 1 billion U.S. dollars cash and the injection of Yahoo's China assets into Alibaba.

"Our goal for the next five years is to become China's largest search engine," said Alibaba.com founder Jack Ma in a statement. "By 2009, we will train a three-year-old child into a big general to fight with Google and Baidu."

Yahoo China now has 800 employees - mostly engineers and product designers, doubling the number at the time of acquisition.

Source:佚名