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On November 21, Alibaba Group Holding Limited CEO Eddie Wu sent an email to all employees, announcing the establishment of the Alibaba E-commerce Business Group and appointing Jiang Fan as in charge, reporting to Eddie Wu.
The new e-commerce business group will comprehensively integrate Taobao Tmall Group, International Digital Business Group, as well as 1688, Xianyu and other e-commerce businesses to form a business cluster covering the entire industry chain at home and abroad.
In September last year, Eddie Wu was appointed CEO of Alibaba Group Holding Limited. He subsequently clarified the strategic focus of “user-focus, AI-driven”, made strategic choices, focused on core businesses, and also served as CEO of Taotian Group and Cloud Intelligence Group. He promoted the rejuvenation of the management team by making radical reforms in organizational structure and business strategies.
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The latest financial report released by Alibaba on November 15th showed that the number of buyers on Taobao Tmall reached a historic high, with 88VIP membership reaching 46 million; revenue from Aliyun’s AI-related services has seen triple-digit growth for five consecutive quarters; revenue from International Digital Business Group increased by 29%; while Local Life Group and Big Entertainment Group significantly narrowed their losses.
“In this rapidly advancing era, despite being only 25 years old, Alibaba must maintain an entrepreneurial mindset to continuously innovate in order to fulfill its mission of serving small and medium-sized enterprises while creating value for society,” said Eddie Wu in an all-staff email. The e-commerce landscape in China and globally is entering a new era where global supply chain capabilities, fulfillment capabilities, and consumer service capabilities will determine future competitive dynamics. The Alibaba E-Commerce Business Unit will leverage all e-commerce resources within the group through integration to unleash accumulated capabilities over many years to serve domestic and global consumers well while helping more small and medium-sized enterprises expand into domestic and overseas markets simultaneously.
Over the past year, Taobao Tmall has gradually moved towards integration with overseas e-commerce platforms. In July this year, Taobao launched the “Global Free Shipping Plan for Major Apparel” program to help apparel merchants go international by investing one billion yuan to make Hong Kong a free shipping zone. In September they also launched English versions in Malaysia and Singapore.
Eddie Wu stated that e-commerce operations along with AI technology are crucial development directions for the group. Regarding AI investments will continue increasing efforts driving productivity revolution powered by AI technology improving infrastructure supporting systems adhering open-source principles continuous investment R&D products applying AI opportunities during this age.
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