Alibaba

[opmi]

Opmi, you are somewhat right this time.

Customer service at Amazon by default should be much better than Taobao merchants.
Amazon is a listed worldwide online retailer. Taobao merchants are made up of a huge number of small merchants selling cheap and unbranded goods from small factories and villages.(what customer service do you expect from these merchants? Seriously.)

But as Jack Ma puts it, the end game is NOT about enabling these small chinese merchants to sell goods to their own country or internationally. It is about enabling merchants from everywhere(developed countries or otherwise) to sell stuff to other countries as well. So it may be a case where U.S. merchants have a store front on their platform and sell domestically or internationally. The potential is limitless but there will be plenty of challenges ahead for them.

the key to Taobao successs is ShunFeng logistics. Their couriers are like workers ants collecting from small merchants, sort and delivered to their customers. I dont know how this symbotic relationship started and evolved.

Taobao dont have that logistics chain outside China. I dont know if Singpost can or not. Quite hard for high labour cost countries.

BTW I buy a lot of stuff from taobao. But not things that I put in my body - food, toothbrushes etc. Dont trust these PRCs.

[BlueKelah]

Open Sesame? Jack Ma's Alibaba loses $US70b in market value as growth disappoints

[CityFarmer]

One new service from Alibaba in China...

Alibaba to build largest China sourcing platform for imports

HONG KONG (May 6): Alibaba Group Holding will introduce a service on its wholesale website 1688.com that allows merchants in China to source global brand names.

The service, which will begin on May 18, will initially offer brands from Spain, according to an e-mailed statement from the company on Wednesday.

The website will add products from Portugal, Italy and South Korea in the future as the company seeks to build it into the largest sourcing platform for imports, Alibaba said.

Cross border e-commerce represents the next battle front for Chinese Internet companies including Alibaba and shopping sites backed by Tencent Holdings.

As China eases policies and sets up test zones that make it cheaper and faster to import overseas goods, companies are rushing to introduce US and European brands to tap demand from an expanding middle class that could reach 600 million in the next decade.
...
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/sg/article...rm-imports

[greengiraffe]

June 24, 2015 3:54 pm
The upstarts that challenge the power in Beijing
David PillingDavid Pilling


Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are three internet groups that have turned much of China upside down


There is an overarching force in China with tentacles reaching deep into almost everybody’s life. That force is not the Communist party, whose influence in people’s day-to-day affairs — though all too real — has waned and can appear almost invisible to those who do not seek to buck the system.
The more disruptive force to be reckoned with these days is epitomised by the three large internet groups: Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, collectively known as BAT, which have turned much of China upside down in just a few short years. Take the example of Ant Financial.

Last week, it completed fundraising that values the company at $45bn to $50bn. It operates Alipay, an online payments system that claims to handle nearly $800bn in e-transactions a year, three times more than PayPal, its US equivalent.
That system, an essential part of China’s financial and retail architecture, and one familiar to almost every Chinese urbanite, is no brainchild of the Communist party. Instead it was the creation of Jack Ma, the former English teacher who founded Alibaba. Mr Ma established the system a decade ago as the backbone for Taobao, his consumer-to-consumer business. The name literally means “digging for treasure”, something that Mr Ma, one of China’s richest people, has clearly found.
Alibaba handles 80 per cent of China’s ecommerce, according to iResearch, a Beijing-based consultancy. That is a monopolistic position that even the Communist party, with its 87m members out of a population of 1.3bn, can only dream about.
80
The percentage that Alibaba handles of China’s ecommerce
True, the Communist party still regulates where people live (in the city or the countryside), what they publish (though less what they say) and how many children they have (though the one-child policy is fast fading).
China’s internet companies, on the other hand, hold ever greater sway on how people shop, invest, travel, entertain themselves and interact socially.
The BAT companies, which dominate search, ecommerce and gaming/social media, together with other upstarts, such as Xiaomi, a five-year-old company that has pioneered the $50 smartphone, are upending how people live.
When we think of the Chinese internet, we tend to think of the overweening influence of the state through censorship. Yet the internet is also a liberating force that is unleashing entrepreneurial energy, bringing market forces to bear in diverse corners of the economy and expanding the role of the private sector at the expense of entrenched state enterprises.
In China’s nominally controlled economy, the private sector long ago outstripped the state as the engine of growth. According to Edward Tse, a management consultant and author of China’s Disruptors , this has resulted in the “emergence of a new group of entrepreneurial business leaders . . . most operating with little direct government influence or support, and all transforming their industries”.
Rmb600bn
Assets accumulated by Yue Bao, a money-market fund, in less than two years
Privately run businesses, he estimates, account for three-quarters of national output. By 2013, China had about 12m privately held and 42m family run businesses against 2.3m state-owned companies.
At the forefront are technology companies in general and internet companies in particular. As elsewhere, in China the online and offline worlds are colliding.
Taxi apps such as Didi Dache, backed by Alibaba and Tencent, have brought market forces to bear where prices were previously set by the state. They are threatening lucrative local taxi monopolies, provoking crackdowns and protests by drivers in several cities.
In finance, where deposit rates are state regulated, the BAT companies and others are offering savings and investment products with much better rates. Yue Bao (“leftover treasure”), a money-market fund distributed by Alibaba over Alipay, has accumulated assets of nearly Rmb600bn in less than two years. Beijing, which wants gradually to liberalise banking, is allowing this crop of private companies to catalyse change.
In important respects, though, even the fiercest of China’s internet pioneers do not operate in a free market. For a start, they conduct their business behind the Great Firewall, a politically motivated barrier that has protected them from the likes of Google, Twitter and Facebook.
In practice, the BAT companies are so close to the government they often behave like quasi-state-owned enterprises anyway, even to the extent that they help form regulation. The government’s ecommerce strategy, announced in March by Li Keqiang, the premier, was originally conceived by Pony Ma, chairman of Tencent.
Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent have turned much of China upside down in just a few short years
Authorities are not always sure how to regulate these powerful new companies. When the State Administration for Industry and Commerce criticised Alibaba for the prevalence of counterfeit goods sold on its websites, Jack Ma’s company threw its weight around, forcing the government regulator to retreat.
If the authorities really want to fight commercial disruption, however, they have the tools to do so. In 2014, for example, the central bank suspended “virtual” credit cards issued by Alibaba and Tencent, blocking their path into online credit.
One must assume that, if push came to shove, the authorities could cripple even the biggest private company. Yet so embedded are the likes of Alibaba and Baidu in people’s lives that even the mighty Communist party might have cause to pause.
david.pilling@ft.com

[FA+TA]

Source: www.reuters.com
Alibaba hires former Goldman banker Evans as president

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) has hired former Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) partner Michael Evans to oversee the e-commerce company's international expansion, a top priority as the firm looks beyond China to sustain its heady growth rates.

Evans, who spent two decades at the investment bank in positions including vice chairman and head of Asia, has occupied a board seat at Alibaba since mid-2014, before the company held a record-setting public listing in New York.

Alibaba, by far the largest e-commerce player in China, said hiring Evans signaled its intention to ramp up cross-border commerce in earnest after it spent years focusing on securing its domestic market position.

Top executives have long touted the idea that connecting increasingly wealthy Chinese consumers with, say, South American meat producers or European toy makers would generate billions in additional revenue for the firm.

Evans, who once headed Goldman's equity underwriting arm, has no direct experience in e-commerce but is trusted by Alibaba's management, having known founder Jack Ma and Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai for years.

He will continue as a management director and lead Alibaba' growth strategy outside of China, reporting directly to Chief Executive Daniel Zhang, the company said. His position is newly created.

Zhang said in a statement that glamorization is Alibaba Group's most important strategy for the coming decades.

He added that Evans has been "a close advisor to Alibaba Group for many years, and we greatly value his deep knowledge of our business, his experience as a proven business builder and leader globally, and his more than 20 years of experience in China."

(Reporting by Gerry Shih, editing by Louise Heavens)

[greengiraffe]

Aug 6 2015 at 8:49 AM Updated Aug 6 2015 at 4:59 PM

How China's new online payment limit will hit Alibaba's Alipay, Tencent's TenPay

Alipay International president Sabrina Peng. Alipay will be hurt by the new payment cap in China. Luis Ascui


by Karen Maley
Is it an attempt to protect the country's big state-owned banks from competition, or is it indeed a genuine effort to crack down on fraud? The latest move by the Chinese central bank to cap the amount of money that Chinese consumers can send through online sites has left commentators sharply divided.

In any case, the new guidelines released by the People's Bank of China on Friday are a big setback for the two big firms that dominate China's online payment system: Alipay, an offshoot of the ecommerce giant Alibaba, which controls almost 50 per cent of all Chinese online payments; and TenPay, the payment arm of the social media and gaming group Tencent, which controls about 20 per cent of the market.

These two big online payment groups are threatening to invade the traditional domain of China's big banks. Not only do they allow the payment of online purchases, but users can also use them to pay bills or settle the cost of a taxi ride. What's more, they can be used to make funds transfers within seconds, as well as offering financial investments.

Online payments are expected to hit ¥11.8 trillion yuan ($2.6 trillion) this year, up from ¥8.1 trillion last year, says Chinese internet market research firm iResearch.

The Chinese central bank's proposal, which will be adopted after a consultation period with industry, says Chinese citizens will be limited to making payments of ¥1000 a day on payment sites that require only one source of identification, and up to ¥5000 a day on sites that require at least two proofs of identity. Larger payments must be done through the payer's account at a commercial bank.

Faced with opposition to its latest proposal to cap payments, the Chinese central bank took the highly unusual step of issuing a follow-up statement on the weekend that responded to the criticism.

The PBOC quoted figures showing that last year, 71 per cent of online payment platform users made payments totalling less than ¥1000, to support its claim that most users will be unaffected by the new cap.

The central bank also emphasised that its new rules were aimed at improving the security of internet payments.

'A HOLISTIC CONSIDERATION OF PAYMENT EFFICIENCY'

"Transfer limits are proposed based on a holistic consideration of payment efficiency and convenience, as well as factors such as anti-money laundering and client fund security," the bank said.

But although some believe that the PBOC's latest move is an attempt to introduce some order into the unregulated and chaotic world of internet finance, others see it as an effort to protect China's big state-owned banks.

They say Alibaba and Tencent are not only engaged in a fierce competition with each other, they're also facing resistance from the big Chinese banks, which for the most part have failed to come up with the innovative, easy-to-use interfaces offered by China's two internet champions.

Even worse for the Chinese banks, these internet players are threatening to move further into their core activities.

Alibaba has already launched an online money market fund, Yu'E Bao, which offers attractive returns to Chinese savers. And after receiving a banking licence in June, Alibaba's finance affiliate launched a new online lender, MYBank, which will make loans of up to ¥5 million to private individuals and small firms. This follows Tencent's creation of WeBank, which began offering a commercial banking service in April. Both new operations are looking to take a slice of the estimated ¥23 trillion household loans market that is growing fast as more Chinese borrowers look for credit.

This move shouldn't worry Chinese bankers in the short term – Chinese banks filled the four top spots for profits across the global industry last year, earning almost double the amount of their US rivals. But they are worried that they could be missing out on a shift that is about to transform their business.

Fortunately for them as they battle to stave off growing competition from the country's internet giants, they have the ear of China's banking regulator, which is concerned about the growing risks in China's financial system.

AFR Contributor

[CityFarmer]

Data centers are booming in Singapore...

Alibaba on course to open Singapore data centre in September

SINGAPORE (Aug 19): China Web giant Alibaba Group is on track to open its data centre here in September, the second overseas data centre to be opened this year by Aliyun, its cloud computing arm.

In a press release, the company says the data centre in Singapore will provide a range of cloud computing services to companies operating in Southeast Asia, with an initial focus on Chinese businesses. When it opens next month, the centre will be connected with the existing six centres in Beijing, Hangzhou, Qingdao, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Silicon Valley, it adds.

Singapore will also be the headquarters for Aliyun's overseas operations, the company says.
...
http://www.theedgemarkets.com/sg/article...-september

[CityFarmer]

Alibaba shares is under-pressured, but I reckon Mr. Ma, isn't bothered too much by that...

Alibaba shares could fall another 50 percent, says Barron's cover story

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, which recently slipped below their initial offering price after having rocketed 75 percent in their first two months of trading, could lose another 50 percent of their value, Barron's said in the cover story of its Sept. 14 issue.

The reasons the weekly financial newspaper gave for the dour outlook: China's struggling economy, increasing competition in e-commerce and more scrutiny of the company's culture and governance.

The company runs two big retail websites and recently warned of lower-than-expected transaction volumes, after having reported that volume growth in the June quarter declined to 34 percent from the 50 percent-plus rates of the past.

"That may only worsen as China's economic growth drops to its lowest pace in six years," Barron's said.

The recent share price puts a market value on the company of $160 billion. But the stock is trading at about 25 times the average earnings estimate from analysts and Barron's said it should be closer to the 15 times multiple of eBay Inc. REUTERS
http://www.todayonline.com/business/alib...over-story

[weijian]

Some 1.4 billion Alibaba shares will hit the market in September after a one-year suspension period laid out in its prospectus, analysts said.

Alibaba Share Price Hits New Low on Poor Transaction Estimate
http://english.caixin.com/2015-09-09/100847970.html

[CityFarmer]

Alibaba has the financial muscle...

Alibaba offers to buy all of video streaming company Youku Tudou
16 Oct 2015 17:47
[BENGALURU] Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Friday it offered to buy all outstanding shares of Chinese video streaming company Youku Tudou Inc that it does not already own.

Alibaba said its all-cash offer of US$26.60 per American Depositary Share represented a premium of about 30 per cent to Youku Tudou's closing price on Thursday.

Alibaba currently owns 18.3 per cent of Youku Tudou, the Chinese e-commerce giant said.

REUTERS

Source: Business Times Breaking News