Yet the new Amazon China store underscores the continuing problems that Google is having in the country, which last year became the world's largest smartphone market.
Chinese billionaires with A-share companies include Liang Wengen of Sany Heavy Industry, a key rival of Caterpillar in China, and Zhang Jindong, the chairman of Suning Commercial, a self-styled Amazon and Wal-Mart of China.
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Nonetheless Amazon faces stiff competition from China's largest telecom carriers, such as China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd.
They make money off of advertising, some listing fees, and the big hope is their new Tmall service which could make Taobao the Amazon (AMZN) of China.
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Last year, Amazon's head of operations in China, Wang Hanhua, stepped down after seven years with the company.
Though Amazon is a small online-services competitor in China, the store could help it attract users.
Although Amazon has run an e-commerce operation in China for years, it has failed to build up a significant market share as local competitors such as Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. and Beijing Jingdong Century Trading Co. have pressed to attract new customers.
They include Apple, Baidu (the Google of China) EMC, Oracle, Juniper, Amazon and QualComm.
In recent months, Amazon has been making a push to expand its offerings in China, first launching an online bookstore and then offering cloud storage services.
Close on the heels of the launch of its e-book store in Brazil, Amazon announced the launch of its Kindle e-book store in China last Thursday.
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The researchers identify several "internet ecosystems" that will try to tie users in to their customised part of the internet, among them Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Baidu and Tencent in China and Yandex in Russia.
Amazon doesn't yet sell its Kindle or e-readers in China, though many analysts expect the company to begin selling its hardware there soon.
Just how many clone opportunities are left in China, now that the Chinese marketplace has copies of YouTube, Amazon, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, eBay and yes, even Wikipedia.
Amazon has become the first Western technology firm to offer paid-for Android apps in China - beating Google to the lucrative market.
Nguyen Thanh Van An, 37, is the chief executive and founder of Internet bookstore Vinabook.com, a clone of China's online bookseller Dangdang.com--itself a version of Amazon.
With the new store, which allows users to download free applications or pay for software, Amazon becomes the first major U.S. company to offer a for-pay Android application store in China.
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