MIH Europe, a subsidiary of South African media group Naspers, bought the Hungarian online auction site Vatera.hu for $9 million, the Hungarian financial news site Portfolio.hu reported. A MIH spokesman said a press statement will be released later this week.

According to Portfolio.hu Vatera has 600,000 registered users and reported a turnover of $40 million in 2007.

This is Naspers’ third acquisition in Europe since taking over Tradus -  the Swiss-based operator of trading platforms in 13 EU countries – in March this year. In the same month it bought a number of sites operated by Moonfish Media, an Estonian Internet company with leading online auction and classified businesses in Estonia and Lithuania. In Estonia Moonfish Media operates Osta.ee, the leading online auction website, and Kv.ee, the number two real estate classifieds portal, according to Tradus. In Lithuania Moonfish Media owns the No. 1 and No. 2 real estate classified sites, namely Aruodas.lt and Edomus.it, and Skelbiu.it, the country’s leading general classifieds site. Tradus acquired a 51 percent stake of Moonfish Media for an undisclosed amount, with an option to purchase up to 100% over the next three to four years. 

In September Tradus bought Austrian auction platform OneTwoSold.at and merged it with its own Ricardo.at to present EBay with a worthy competitor in Austria.

After an internal reorganization, Tradus now consists of a Ricardo and an Allegro division. The Ricardo division operates in western Europe and the Allegro division in eastern Europe, which is also where Tradus has the strongest market positions.  

The Naspers acquisitions became all the more interesting, after EBay recently announced a special effort to strengthen its position in eastern Europe and Scandinavia and said it would announce the first of a number of site acquisitions in these regions soon. The first of these acquisitions were announced yesterday.

So, Naspers and EBay seem to be shaping up for a tough market share battle – at least in eastern Europe, if not Scandinavia.