Sina Corp said it will acquire 19 percent of Nasdaq-listed online apparel vendor Mecox Lane for US$66 million as the Chinese web portal expands its business into the booming online shopping market.

"E-commerce is growing very fast in China, and this investment is our first step to be involved in the market," Sina President and Chief Executive Officer Charles Chao told an analysts' conference call yesterday.

Sina will name a person to Mecox Lane's board of directors to replace an executive from Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm for Mecox Lane.

"This (purchase) will help Mecox Lane lower its marketing costs and lure customers from Sina's huge user base, and the involvement of large web portals in e-commerce will be a big trend in future," said Henry Yang, president of iResearch Inc.

China's online shopping market revenue nearly doubled to 498 billion yuan (US$76 billion) last year, according to iResearch's latest report.