Alibaba to Merge China’s Food Delivery Units To Surpass Meituan
China’s largest conglomerate Alibaba Group is planning to bring together and merge its food delivery units. The units that are getting merged are food delivery platform Ele.me and food and lifestyle services firm Koubei.
The purpose behind this move is to raise funds for the combined business and also to intensify the battle with Tencent-backed Meituan Dianping which is the company’s rival. With this merger, Alibaba Group is expecting to raise between $3 billion and $5 billion for the combined entity, and according to the sources, the entity could be valued at up to $25 billion.
"Alibaba and Meituan are the two main companies that can offer comprehensive O2O services," said Mo Jia, a Shanghai-based research analyst with technology consultancy Canalys. "Alibaba's three units are complem...