Alibaba buys stake in China's Twitter-type Weibo service

Alibaba, China's biggest e-commerce group has bought an 18% stake in Weibo, China's largest Twitter-like service, as it looks to tap into the fast-growing social media sector.

Alibaba will pay $586m (£378m) for the stake, valuing Weibo at over $3.2bn.

The deal is expected to help Alibaba drive traffic from Weibo, which has more than 500 million users, to its e-commerce sites such as Taobao.

It will also help generate additional advertising revenue for Weibo.

According to the two firms, the partnership will bring in $380m more in advertising and social commerce services revenue for Weibo over the next three years. 

"We believe that this strategic alliance helps to create a stronger Weibo," said Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba.