Alibaba makes move into auto industry

A cyclist rides past a signboard of Alibaba Group in Hangzhou city, East China's Zhejiang province, June 25, 2014. [Photo/IC]

Alibaba Group has set up an auto business division aimed at providing one-stop services ranging from sales, second-hand car transactions to motor financing, announced the e-commerce behemoth on Wednesday.

The new division will integrate all motor related businesses within the Group and provide car owners with a variety of O2O (online-to-offline) motor services, said Alibaba in its micro-blog weibo account.

Wang Licheng, former general manager of its group-shopping platform Juhuasuan, will lead the motor business division, according to the announcement.

The move comes as Chinese Internet giants move into the motor services.

Alibaba and SAIC Motor Corp announced on Mar 12 the founding of a 1-billion-yuan ($163 million) fund to develop Internet connected vehicles.

Tencent launched a partnership in the same month with Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co and luxury car dealer China Harmony Auto Holding, to explore a business model to manufacture and sell smart electric cars.