Alibaba acquires Chinese Android app store Wandoujia

Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Tuesday that it will buy the Beijing-based Wandoujia, a major Android app store.

Wandoujia will be incorporated into Alibaba's mobile business unit, Alibaba said in the statement without revealing details of the deal.

The deal, which is reportedly worth $200 million, will help Alibaba gain a better foothold in mobile app distribution.

Wandoujia was valued at $1 billion when it secured a round of financing led by SoftBank in 2014. Later in 2014, Alibaba reportedly offered $1.5 billion yuan to buy up the app store but was rejected.

The Android app store, which was founded at the end of 2009, has since suffered from internal strife and increasing competition as more and more smartphone makers, such as Huawei and Xiaomi, have set up their own app stores.

Statistics from the Beijing-based Analysys International showed that Wandoujia ranked fifth among app stores accounting for 5.7 percent of the app distribution market in the first quarter.

Baidu Inc, the dominant player in app distribution, took 27.5 percent of the market share. In 2013, Baidu spent as much as $1.9 billion to take over app store 91 Wireless as the Chinese online search engine tried to navigate the shift from desktop computing to mobile internet.