Alright China has some major issues with directly investing into Facebook, perhaps fearing it might have to allow the social network more access to its people. But making an indirect link doesn’t sound that bad and there is always an option. China’s leading Internet firm, Tencent has made a $300 Million investment in Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies. The same DST that has made major investments in Facebook, Zynga [Farmville creator].
The investment will give Tencent a 10.26% share in DST. I am not sure what shares does it translate to for Facebook, in which DST has 3.5 stake. The investment is pretty striking for me, given that only recently I stated that penetrating China, is going to be a major problem for Facebook but firms in the region see the prospects of making investments as it is a definite profit, one thing that wont translate to losses any time in the future. As for Facebook, it just adds more value to the platform, the greater firms get associated to it, the easier it becomes for it to gain penetration into the International market, even in regions where the idea is a bit too difficult.
Think of it, we can state that Tencent’s primary interest was DST alone but it indirectly has interests in the social network now. I am just looking forward to how many more firms in China get into this indirect association with it, this would eventually translate to Chinese firms fighting for the social network to have a more freedom prominent exposure in the country. Why do I state that? Well China is a huge market that is still untapped for firms like Facebook, Google, the giants of the Web, when they do get investments, especially Facebook the chances of having a solid support to their entry would prove to be more beneficial for the country, since all major firms would have a shares and the market in the country to turn to profits. That’s just my opinion.
