BEIJING -- 99Bill Corporation (http://www.99bill.com ), the leading payment service provider and the first company in China offering email and mobile phone number based online payment platform and solutions, recently announced the signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Sohu.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOHU), China's premier internet company, to jointly launch the Sohu-99Bill joint-account payment service. Under this agreement, Sohu users will be able to quickly and conveniently access the fast and secured payment services offered by 99Bill, such as internet and mobile phone payment, and enjoy the rich and value-added interactive services over the web. The launch of Sohu-99Bill joint-account signifies that the independent third-party payment platform, represented by 99Bill, is growing at a high rate. It also symbolizes that 99Bill's partnership and cooperation with established Internet services providers have stepped up to a new and higher stage.

As one of the most well known Internet brands in China, Sohu.com is more than an information service platform and it also offers users a broad array of services, such as Internet entertainment, communication and web-search. Especially important, Sohu enables users to make unobstructed online shopping via the net. With millions of registered users and massive amount of page view, Sohu has built one of the most comprehensive portfolio of Chinese language Internet properties and proprietary search engines, consisting of: Sohu.com (the mass portal and leading online media destination), ChinaRen.com (the #1 online alumni club), 17173.com (the #1 games information portal), Focus.cn (a top real estate and home furnishing website), GoodFeel.com.cn (a wireless value-added services provider), and Sogou.com (an interactive search engine with over 2.5 billion retrieved Chinese web pages). These services have attracted enormous attention from users and the market, but the online payment continued to be one of the critical bottlenecks that hindered Sohu's electronic business development. 99Bill Corporation is a third party payment service provider that focuses on providing internet and wireless payment solutions. This strategic partnership will improve the revenue collecting capability for Sohu, and the payment experience of 120 millions Sohu users.

99Bill Corporation