Sunday, November 17

Tag: alibaba

Tmall Global Unveils New Initiatives to Boost China’s Imports
CHINA

Tmall Global Unveils New Initiatives to Boost China’s Imports

Hangzhou, China: Tmall Global unveiled two key initiatives that further Alibaba’s plans to bring $200 billion worth of international goods into China over the next five years and help businesses of all sizes enter the China market. The initiatives the "Centralized Import Procurement (CIP)" and "Tmall Overseas Fulfillment (TOF)" are import solutions offered by Tmall Global to help international brands accelerate their entry into China and capitalize on hot demand for high-quality products. As the biggest cross-border platform in China, Tmall Global not only helps brand open up flagship stores on the platform, but also offers direct import services that can help bring international goods, from companies of all sizes sell into the Chinese market, benefiting Chinese consumers with an e...
Alibaba Net Profit Increases 37% to $4.9 Billion
BUSINESS

Alibaba Net Profit Increases 37% to $4.9 Billion

Chinese ecommerce leader Alibaba said Wednesday that net profit increased 37 percent in the latest quarter as growth in cloud computing and other business lines helped offset a slowing expansion in core online retail. The company's net profit grew to 33.0 billion yuan (USD 4.9 billion) in the October-December third quarter, compared to 24.1 billion yuan over the same period in 2017. Alibaba dominates China's emerging consumer culture and its corporate results were widely anticipated for any signs of whether a worsening Chinese economic slowdown and the US-China trade tussle was curbing the country's appetite for shopping. Revenue growth slowed to 41 per cent in the quarter, with sales in its core e-commerce business coming in at 40 per cent. While most companies would envy such...
Huawei, Alibaba, Xiaomi top Fortune List of China’s Most Innovative Companies
CHINA

Huawei, Alibaba, Xiaomi top Fortune List of China’s Most Innovative Companies

China has announced its list of the most innovative companies in the country and Huawei was ranked first among the most innovative company in China, followed by Alibaba and Xiaomi, in a list published by Fortune China. The Chinese-language edition of Fortune released its ranking of "China's most innovative companies for 2018" on Wednesday after surveying 359 companies, including many of China's top 500 companies and the country's firms in the world's top 500. The survey was done in partnership with the consultancy firm A.T. Kearney. The list highlighted dozens of innovative companies in sectors as diverse as telecommunications, smart homes, retail, manufacturing, logistics, banking, and healthcare. China broke into the list of the world's top 20 most-innovative economies in July, ...
Kishore Biyani Looks for an Opportunity to Create an Indian Amazon/Alibaba
News

Kishore Biyani Looks for an Opportunity to Create an Indian Amazon/Alibaba

The founder of Future Group Kishore Biryani is looking forward to grab the opportunity to build an Indian Amazon or Alibaba. This has come up after the government has banned online marketplaces from selling products by companies in which they hold stakes and also curbed exclusive marketing arrangements that could influence product prices. “It’s a game-changer for us. This is not really a policy but more of a clarification and every retailer will have to adhere to it. They can’t build brands now,” said Biyani. Biyani, who’s never made a secret of his disdain for e-commerce rivals for their predatory pricing, said most online companies will have to contend with being just a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers through technology. “There was no chance we could have ...
Alibaba Appoints new CEO for its Southeast Asia e-commerce Firm
News

Alibaba Appoints new CEO for its Southeast Asia e-commerce Firm

Alibaba has appointed a new CEO at its e-commerce firm in Southeast Asia known as Lazada. Previous CEO Lucy Peng stepped down to be replaced by Lazada executive president Pierre Poignant after just nine months in the role. The company owns 90 percent of Lazada and has been involved in the business since April 2016 when it bought 51 percent of Lazada for $1 billion from Rocket Internet. Also, after the acquisition Alibaba invested a further $1 billion last year to increase its equity to around 83 percent and earlier this year it raised its stake even higher with an additional $2 billion injection. Lazada operates in six countries across Southeast Asia, but there are very few indicators of how the business is performing. Alibaba’s own financial rep...
Alibaba Settles $9.92 Billion in the First Hour of its Annual Singles’ Day
BUSINESS

Alibaba Settles $9.92 Billion in the First Hour of its Annual Singles’ Day

China’s largest e-commerce platform Alibaba Group has reportedly settled roughly 69 billion yuan ($9.92 billion) in the first hour of its annual Singles' Day on Sunday. The amount is up by 21% from last year's early haul of 57 billion yuan. This has by far been the largest-ever Singles’ Day to date. Alibaba Singles' Day is the world's biggest online sales event and last year netted Alibaba 168 billion yuan ($24.15 billion) in total sales. This is expected to be the company's final November sale event. The company stated that the current chief executive Daniel Zhang will take over as chairman next year. However, while sales growth remains steady, Alibaba's stock has dropped 16 percent this year amid economic uncertainties linked to brewing trade tensions between China and the United S...
China’s Alibaba Partners with a Swiss Luxury Goods Firm
CHINA

China’s Alibaba Partners with a Swiss Luxury Goods Firm

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has reportedly announced a partnership with Swiss luxury goods group Richemont for the purpose of developing platforms in China for high-end products. According to the deal, Richemont's online unit Yoox-net-a-porter and Alibaba will set up a joint venture with two mobile phone applications that are Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter. This is basically being done to serve the Chinese market. The two companies Net-a-porter and Mr Porter will also be made available on Alibaba's specialist luxury site, Tmall Luxury Pavilion that was started last year. Also, the companies have agreed to explore other opportunities to develop the luxury goods market in China. "Our digital offer in China is just getting started," Richemont chief Johann Rupert said. Richemont, rank...
Zomato to Raise $210 Million from Alibaba’s Online Payment Firm
FUNDING

Zomato to Raise $210 Million from Alibaba’s Online Payment Firm

The food delivery and restaurant discovery major Zomato has reportedly entered into a deal to raise funds amounting to $210 million (roughly Rs. 886 crores) from Alibaba's online payment platform Alipay Singapore. This funding news has come a few weeks after the food-ordering platform announced the acquisition of TongueStun, a Bengaluru-based startup that serves corporate catering space in six Indian cities. "[W]e would like to bring to your knowledge that Zomato has signed a definitive agreement to undertake a primary fund raise of approximately $210 million from Alipay Singapore Holding Pte Ltd (which is an existing shareholder of Zomato) and/ or any of its affiliates, and upon the closing of this fund raise," the regulatory filing mentioned. Prior to this, the company secured $150 ...
Jack Ma to Launch an Institute of Entrepreneurs in Indonesia
CHINA

Jack Ma to Launch an Institute of Entrepreneurs in Indonesia

The founder and executive chairman of China’s largest e-commerce company Jack Ma is reportedly planning to open an institute to train thousands of tech entrepreneurs in Indonesia. However, he did not mention when Jack Ma Institute of Entrepreneurs would launch. The aim behind this move is to train 1,000 tech leaders a year over the next 10 years. "We're giving a lot of opportunities for young Indonesian people to learn," Jack Ma said. The co-founder of Alibaba said it is important for Indonesia to invest in human capital because "only when people improve, when people's minds change, when people's skills improve, then we can enter the digital period". Talking about Indonesia, the country has a lack of trained engineers in technology and the institute will also train hundreds of develop...
Alibaba Launches its Second Availability Zone in India
CHINA

Alibaba Launches its Second Availability Zone in India

The cloud computing arm of the Alibaba Group has reportedly launched its second availability zone in Indian city Mumbai. The company stated that this freshly built zone will complement the first availability zone that was opened in January this year. This will provide products such as Elastic Computing, Storage, Database, Network, Application Services and Big Data Analytics to offer services according to the requirements of local governments and enterprises. This move has been the part of Alibaba’s strategy for the purpose of expanding its global existence to provide services to a growing client base meanwhile targeting new local customers. Alibaba Cloud at present has 50 availability zones across 18 economic centres across the globe, with coverage extending across mainland China,...
Alibaba Along with Mail.ru Launches a New Joint Venture
CHINA

Alibaba Along with Mail.ru Launches a New Joint Venture

China’s e-commerce major Alibaba and Russia’s internet company Mail.ru have announced that they have entered into a deal to launch a joint venture in Russia and former Soviet countries. The new venture will be called AliExpress Russia, taking after the name of an existing Alibaba platform. The two groups and the Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF along with telecom operator MegaFon, announced the inauguration of "a new strategic partnership" as Russia hosts an economic forum in the far eastern city of Vladivostok. Alibaba and Mail.ru said in a statement this would "integrate Russia's key consumer internet and e-commerce platforms and launch a leading social commerce joint venture in Russia and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States)." According to the statement, the new compan...
Alibaba Founder Jack Ma will Step Down in 2019
CHINA

Alibaba Founder Jack Ma will Step Down in 2019

With all the speculations regarding Alibaba’s Jack Ma’s expected retirement, the company announced today that its CEO, Daniel Zhang, will succeed Ma as chairman next year, exactly one year after on Sept 10, 2019. After resigning from the role of chairman next year, Ma will continue serving as a board member until its annual general shareholders’ meeting in 2020. Even after that, Ma will remain a lifetime partner of the Alibaba Partnership, or a group of 36 partners drawn from the senior management ranks of Alibaba Group companies and affiliates. "Under his stewardship, Alibaba has seen consistent and sustainable growth for 13 consecutive quarters... Starting the process of passing the Alibaba torch to Daniel and his team is the right decision at the right time," Ma said in a letter rel...