ALIBABA, China's largest e-commerce company, is entering the growing digital mapping business by paying US$294 million for a 28 percent stake in AutoNavi Holdings Ltd.

The move follows Alibaba's US$586 million purchase of an 18 percent stake in Sina Corp's microblogging service Weibo.

Nasdaq-listed AutoNavi said the tie-up will help Alibaba offer better lifestyle applications to clients. The two parties will deepen cooperation in data building, mapping, product development, cloud computing and marketing and commercialization of products and services.

"We deeply believe that mobile Internet will create more and more exciting lifestyle products," said Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group. "We are willing to join hands with partners like AutoNavi to make people's lives more enjoyable, more convenient, and better."

The announcement was made at a celebration marking the 10th anniversary of Taobao.

Alibaba runs Taobao, China's largest consumer-focused e-commerce website, business-to-business commerce platform Alibaba.com and online payment platform Alipay.

AutoNavi, with a client base of more than 100 million, accounts for 29.8 percent of mobile mapping applications as the No. 1 player in the sector, according to Analysys International.