The Chinese internet giant Baidu has announced that it will invest 20 million US dollars in the online groceries company Womai.
Online grocery shopping is growing in popularity in China, with Womai being one of the leading websites in the niche market.
Womai has secured 200 million US dollars' worth of investment in its latest funding round, and has said it will use the money to improve the company's logistics infrastructure and delivery systems.
A commentator from the Chinese internet industry has commented on the importance of online grocery shopping, saying: “Fresh produce is gaining popularity with consumers. Once Internet firms manage to turn regular buyers of fresh produce into active users of their websites, they can sell these consumers other more expensive items.”
Earlier this year, Baidu said that it will be investing over 3 billion US dollars in online-to-offline services in the next 3 years, and according to CEO Robin Li, the company's future lies in services, rather than searching.
Online-to-offline services are those which allow users to do a real-world activity online, such as taxi-hailing, ticket-booking and food delivery apps.Â
