SeD to take on China social media giants

SINGAPORE eDevelopment (SeD), fresh from a corporate restructure that puts a well-known white knight at the company's top spot, now looks to challenging Chinese giants Alibaba and Tencent in the instant messaging and e-commerce space.

SeD yesterday announced that it would acquire from its newly appointed chief executive officer, Chan Heng Fai, a mobile-application company known as HotApps for S$98,000.

HotApps, which is registered in Singapore, will launch an app by the end of this year that incorporates instant messaging and e-commerce. This will be launched in 24 countries, said Mr Chan at a press briefing, with key markets including China, Indonesia, Japan, Latin America and the United States.