By Tang Guhan
China's automaker, the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd. on Thursday announced they had partnered with the tech giant Tencent Holdings Limited to buy a 49 percent stake in China's Wi-Fi operator for a high-speed train.
The operator is the Bullet Train Networks Technology Ltd., a subsidiary of the state-run China Railway Corporation., founded in Dec. 2017.
It announced it would sell 49 percent of its stakes in April this year with a bottom price of 3.049 billion yuan. Eventually, Geely and Tencent jointly won the bid for 4.3 billion yuan under fierce competition.
Geely accounted for 39 percent out of the 49 percent while Tencent gained the rest at 10 percent.
The move was part of a big effort to facilitate the reforms of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), aiming at introducing internet giants with their cutting-edge technologies into the railway network operations, China Railway said.
The two companies will team up with China Railway in providing value-added non-stop services, such as ticket bookings, entertainment, shopping, travelling, and catering, among others.
Geely is transforming from a traditional car maker to a tech car service provider. It has been proactively seeking business opportunities abroad as well as expanding its businesses in the ride-hailing sector across China.
Customers could play video games developed by Tencent and order a Geely' Caocao Taxi before arriving at their destinations or even buy a car on the e-commerce platform operated by the two companies.
The passengers travelling by high-speed trains numbered to 1.7 billion during 2017. With the development of China's railway infrastructure, customers are demanding more and more value-added services, including stable, efficient and a broad coverage of mobile internet services on the train.
The enormous high-speed train passengers volume will bring more and more customers as well as business opportunities to Geely and Tencent
