NetEase.com and EachNet.com announce strategic alliance
China's Most-Trafficked Web Site and Largest Auction Site Team Up to Build a Co-Branded Online Trading and Auction Channel on NetEase.com
BEIJING, October 16, 2000
NetEase.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTES), a leading Internet technology company which supports China's top-ranked Web sites according to independent audience measurement company IAMASIA, announced today with EachNet (http://www.eachnet.com), a leading online consumer trading community in China, a strategic alliance to benefit millions of Internet users. The alliance will create a co-branded auction channel (http://eachnet.163.com) on the NetEase Web sites, providing NetEase's 8.1 million registered users (at the end of August 2000) access to EachNet's more than 50,000 daily listings of products and services. As part of the terms of the strategic alliance, NetEase and EachNet will jointly develop the new co-branded site.
"NetEase is dedicated to providing its community users with the best online experience and the addition of EachNet's online auctions to Netease's offering adds tremendous value for our users. EachNet holds a dominant position in the auction market and by partnering with EachNet, we are placing our users in the heart of the largest community of online buyers and sellers in China," said King Lai, CEO of NetEase. "We are committed to maintaining the NetEase Web sites' number one position among China's Web sites and intend to grow this lead through smart, strategic partnerships and investments that give users the best the Internet has to offer."
"By combining the largest auction site in China with one of the country's most popular Web sites, we are creating a potent partnership that will benefit both parties. By utilizing strategic alliances such as our partnership with Netease, we bring our service offerings directly to the hands of an ever-increasing number of China's Internet users," said Bo Shao, founder and CEO of EachNet.
According to the terms of the deal, the NetEase Web sites' current auction channel will be transitioned into the new co-branded site containing EachNet's vast array of auction listings and services. NetEase and EachNet will share ad revenues and commissions from transactions made on the co-branded site. In addition, NetEase and EachNet will jointly market and offer application technology services to Chinese businesses seeking e-commerce solutions.
In a separate release, EachNet announced it has recently secured a US $20.5 million investment. NetEase participated in the financing as a strategic investor along with a number of other investors around the world.
NetEase's Web site (http://www.163.com) was recently ranked China's top Web site by IAMASIA, a leading source of information on Internet usage in the Asia-Pacific region, and EachNet was ranked the leading e-commerce site in China by IAMASIA. The NetEase Web sites have been repeatedly recognized among the top Chinese portals locally, regionally and globally. The NetEase Web sites have been twice chosen as the most popular Web sites in China in regular surveys conducted by CNNIC, which also named EachNet the most favored online auction site. .
  About NetEase.com
  NetEase is a leading Internet technology company based in China. The NetEase Web sites offer Chinese Internet users Chinese language-based online content, community and electronic commerce services. NetEase's average daily page views for the seven-day period ending August 31, 2000 exceeded 40 million. As of August 31, 2000, NetEase Web sites had more than 8.1 million registered members, 503,000 personal home pages, 45,000 simultaneous chat room participants, and 5 million e-mail accounts.
  About EachNet
  EachNnet currently dominates the online consumer trading space in China. As of October 2000, it has over 2.3 million registered users, who have transacted over RMB300 million (US$40 million) worth of goods on EachNet. In recent months, it has extended its trading platform to enable businesses to sell to EachNet's vast and e-commerce savvy users, and as a result has become the leader in online mobile phone sales in China. It currently holds the sole online mobile phone distribution license from China Mobile. During September, EachNet recorded over US$1.1 million in revenues.
  Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
  This press release contains statements of a forward-looking nature. These statements are made under the ``safe harbor'' provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these forward-looking statements by terminology such as ``will,'' ``expects,'' ``anticipates,'' ``future,'' ``intends,'' ``plans,'' ``believes,'' ``estimates'' and similar expressions. The accuracy of these statements may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated, including risks related to: the risk that the number of Chinese users of the Internet will not grow; the risk that the NetEase Web sites will not be as attractive to Chinese Internet users as NetEase anticipates; the risk that NetEase's planned advertising campaign will not be successful; and other risks outlined in NetEase's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its registration statement on Form F-1, as amended. NetEase does not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information, except as required under applicable law.
  For Further Information, please contact:
  Wang Nan, NetEase.com, Inc., Tel: 8610-65618811-243
E-mail: nanwang@staff.163.com
  Note:
NetEase Web Properties include www.yeah.net, www.126.com and the number one site, www.163.com.