(Telecompaper) Chinese group-buy startups Meituan.com and Dianping.com, separately backed by Alibaba Group and Tencent respectively, have signed a merger agreement, Bloomberg reported, adding that the two will now pool resources and cease their margin-eroding price war. Under the agreement, Meituan CEO Wang Xing and Dianping CEO Zhang Tao will run the new company as co-chairmen and co-CEOs. The deal creates a dominant player in China's online-to-offline services market, as consumers increasingly use smartphones and tablets to book everything from hotel rooms to car rides to grocery deliveries. The alliance will have as competitor search company Baidu, which is investing USD 3.2 billion over three years on its own provider of local services.