No joy for Yahoo China as e-mail service to close_美文

No joy for Yahoo China as e-mail service to close

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Yahoo China announced on Thursday it will shut down its e-mail service by Aug 19, another sign of the brand's shrinking presence in the Chinese market.

The company, part of Internet giant Yahoo, has been run by China's e-commerce leader Alibaba since 2005, after the two firms shook hands on a $1 billion deal that saw Yahoo given 40 percent of then little-known Alibaba's stock.

Closing Yahoo Mail, one of the earliest e-mail service providers in China, will leave the brand with only its Web portal business in China.

Yahoo China told users on Thursday morning that they have to register a mailbox with AliCloud, a core business unit under Alibaba, to make sure their e-mails and other information will be kept instead of being deleted when Yahoo Mail ceases its operations.

"The decision was made mainly to support the users, as we are not sure how long we can provide the e-mail service under Yahoo's current technological structure," said Zhang Jianhua, from the public relations department of Alibaba.

Media reports said Alibaba is likely to "return" the Yahoo China unit to its US parent as early as May, but the company denied the reports and said it will continue to operate Yahoo China for up to four more years.

"But we feel there are lots of uncertainties in terms of the brand's development, so we made the decision to help our users transfer to a more stable e-mail service provider," Zhang said.