New moves from Internet giant Tencent (HKEx: 700) and global retailer WalMart (NYSE: WMT) are turning up the competition in China’s e-commerce wars, which are quickly becoming a contest to see who can outspend whom. Both of these latest initiatives look quite pricey, especially Tencent’s move that will see it roll out an ultra-fast product delivery program. WalMart, meantime, is pouring big money into a campaign to build a new in-house clothing brand for its recently acquired Yihaodianonline store. The current trends are a bit worrisome, as they indicate no near-term easing in China’s e-commerce price wars that have raged for about 2 years now. The major problem is that companies have too much cash from investors keen to buy into the China e-commerce story, even though most of those companies are currently losing money. Exemplifying the trend is Dangdang (NYSE: DANG), one of the sector’s few publicly traded firms, which just reported its latest in a string of massive losses that has stretched for most of the last 2 years. (results announcement)
