(Yicai) Jan. 15 -- Ele.me has rejected a media article that said Chinese tech giant ByteDance is negotiating with Alibaba Group to buy the takeout platform.

The information is false, Shanghai-based Ele.me told Yicai today.

ByteDance, the Beijing-based owner of TikTok, is in talks with Alibaba about acquiring Ele.me, but they have not reached a deal yet, Chinese magazine Caijing said yesterday, citing a number of sources. It offered USD7 billion to buy the platform, less than the USD7.5 billion to USD8 billion expected by Alibaba. 

In addition, ByteDance is only interested in Ele.me's immediate delivery business, but Hangzhou-based Alibaba expects it to take over the entire platform, according to Caijing.

A market rumor on Dec. 19 also had it that ByteDance's Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, was in talks with Alibaba about buying Ele.me too. A Douyin representative said that there was no such plan. The partnership between Ele.me and Douyin is advancing steadily, but an acquisition is completely unfounded, an Ele.me insider added.

Ele.me and Douyin joined hands last August, with Ele.me helping merchants to provide immediate deliveries and other local life services to users via a mini program on interactive platform Open.douyin.com.

Editor: Martin Kadiev