Bitauto Announces Joint Venture with Yong Da Group and UXIN

BEIJING, Aug. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Bitauto Holdings Limited ("Bitauto" or the "Company") (NYSE: BITA), a leading provider of Internet content and marketing services for China's fast-growing automotive industry, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to establish a joint venture ("JV") company, with China Yong Da Automobiles Services Holdings Limited ("Yong Da Group"), one of China's leading automotive dealership groups, and Youxinpai (Beijing) Information Technology Co., Ltd. ("UXIN"), a leading professional electronic auction service provider for used cars in China.

By partnering with Yong Da Group and UXIN, Bitauto's proprietary used car website, taoche.com, will benefit from an expanded inventory of available-for-sale used cars. China's used car market has huge, long-term growth potential yet remains under-served. The joint venture will ultimately help better serve the market by ensuring greater numbers of car buyers across China, have easy access to authentic, transparent and comprehensive used cars information.

"Bitauto is delighted to partner with Yong Da Group and UXIN," said Mr. William Bin Li, chairman and chief executive officer of Bitauto. "We continue to execute on our long-term, used car strategy. This new partnership will help extend our already leading position and strengthen our existing competitive advantages within China's used car industry. We look forward to delivering customers with more extensive used car information via our taoche.com website and are confident this will ensure it remains the go-to website for used car listings in China."

Mr. Zhang De'an, chairman of Yong Da Group commented, "As a leading network of auto dealerships, we have access to a vast pool of used car information. We are pleased to share this with Bitauto and UXIN and look forward to drawing on each other's resources and expertise. We are confident the partnership will help provide our auto dealerships with more effective marketing activities and promote our used car inventory to a broader range of potential consumers."

Mr. Chris Dai Kun, chairman and chief executive officer of UXIN added, "We are thrilled to partner with Bitauto and Yong Da Group. Through the joint venture, we look forward to bringing our leading online auction platform and technology to more auto dealers. The online-to-offline trend in the used car sales grows fast. We are confident that the new partnership can truly facilitate the development of China's online used car market."

About Bitauto Holdings Limited

Bitauto Holdings Limited (NYSE: BITA) is a leading provider of Internet content and marketing services for China's fast-growing automotive industry. Bitauto manages its businesses in four segments: the bitauto.com advertising business, the EP platform business, the taoche.com business, and the digital marketing solutions business.

The Company's bitauto.com advertising business offers automakers and dealers a variety of advertising services through its bitauto.com website, which provides consumers with up-to-date new automobile pricing and promotional information, specifications, reviews and consumer feedback. The Company's EP platform business provides web-based integrated digital marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) applications to new automobile dealers in China. The platform enables dealer subscribers to create their own online showrooms, list pricing and promotional information, provide dealer contact information, place advertisements and manage customer relationships to help them effectively market their automobiles to consumers. The Company's taoche.com business provides listing services to used automobile dealers that enable them to display used automobile inventory information on the taoche.com website and partner websites. The Company provides advertising services to used automobile dealers and automakers with certified pre-owned automobile programs on its taoche.com website. The Company's digital marketing solutions business provides automakers with one-stop digital marketing solutions, including website creation and maintenance, online public relations, online marketing campaigns and advertising agent services.

For more information, please visit ir.bitauto.com.

About Yongda Automobiles Services Holdings Limited

As a leading passenger vehicle retailer and comprehensive service provider in China, Yongda Auto has set up many 4S dealerships, integrating sales, spare parts, services across China. Focusing on luxury and ultra-luxury auto brands, namely, BMW, MINI, Audi, Bentley, Porsche, Jaguar, Land Rover, Infiniti, Cadillac, Volvo, Buick, Chevrolet, Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, etc, the company is committed to providing customers with a comprehensive range of automobile-related services through our "one-stop shop" approach, which include sales and after-sales services, auto spare parts & accessories, auto repair, maintenance and decoration services, as well as a wide array of services that we offer in connection with pre-owned vehicles, automobile insurance products, and vehicle inspection.

About Youxinpai (Beijing) Information Technology Co., Ltd.

UXIN is the leading professional electronic auction service provider for used cars in China. The company's core product "Youxinpai.com" is an online auction platform providing an one-stop service, which includes online auction, vehicle evaluation, safe payment method, after-sales service and long-distance logistic support. The online sales platform provides the most effective used cars auction service to authorized auto dealers, used car dealers and car owners.

UXIN is the first one to create nationwide chain "live auction" mode in the domestic, covering above 300,000 square meters, covers six major export markets of used car dealing, they are Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, creates all-round informatization and normalization used-car transaction service auction house including exhibition hall of auction auto, auction house, site payment, transfer formalities and centralized delivery auto. UXIN provide services for more than 10,000 used car business customers in the nation, with the way combined online auction and live auction, the buyers of UXIN has covered 365 cities of China.

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confident" and similar statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Bitauto does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Bitauto undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

China

IR Department
Bitauto Holdings Limited
Tel: +86-10-6849-2145
[email protected]

Rachael Layfield
Brunswick Group LLP
Tel: +86-10-5960-8600
[email protected]

New York

Cindy Zheng
Brunswick Group LLP
Tel: +1 (415) 671 7676
[email protected]

SOURCE Bitauto Holdings Limited