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Alibaba Group

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"Alibaba" redirects here. For the fictional character, see Ali Baba.
Alibaba Group
Company typee-commerce
IndustryInternet
FoundedHangzhou, China (1999)
Headquarters
18-19/F, Xihu International Building, 391 Wen Er Road, Hangzhou 310013
,
China
Key people
Ma Yun (Jack Ma)
Revenue717,289,000,000 renminbi (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
89,678,000,000 renminbi (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
143,284,000,000 renminbi (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
Total assets1,690,218,000,000 renminbi (2021) Edit this on Wikidata
Number of employees
22,000 (April 2011; including employees of Alibaba Group's affiliated entities)
Websitewww.alibaba.com

Alibaba Group (simplified Chinese: 阿里巴巴集团; traditional Chinese: 阿里巴巴集團; pinyin:Ālǐbābā Jítuán) is a privately owned Hangzhou, China-based family of Internet-based businesses that includes online marketplaces that facilitate business-to-business international and domestic China trade, retail and payment platforms, a shopping search engine, and data-centric cloud computing services.

Alibaba Group and its affiliated entities now have more than 22,000 employees across some 70 cities and regions, including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Alibaba Group and its affiliated entities:

  • Alibaba.com (HKSE: 1688) - publicly traded company in e-commerce for small businesses
  • Taobao Marketplace - consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online shopping platform
  • Taobao Mall - business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail marketplace
  • eTao - search engine designed for online shoppers
  • Alibaba Cloud Computing - advanced data-centric cloud computing services platform
  • China Yahoo! - one of China’s leading internet portals
  • Alipay - third-party online payment platform

Naming

File:Alibaba-screenshot.png
Alibaba screenshot

Jack Ma said, "One day I was in San Francisco in a coffee shop, and I was thinking Alibaba is a good name. And then a waitress came, and I said do you know about Alibaba? And she said yes. I said what do you know about Alibaba, and she said ‘Open sesame'. And I said yes, this is the name! Then I went onto the street and found 30 people and asked them, ‘Do you know Alibaba?’ People from India, people from Germany, people from Tokyo and China… They all knew about Alibaba. Alibaba — open sesame. Alibaba is a kind, smart business person, and he helped the village. So…easy to spell, and globally known. Alibaba opens sesame for small- to medium-sized companies. We also registered the name Alimama, in case someone wants to marry us!"[1]

Alibaba Group companies and affiliated entities

Alibaba.com

Alibaba.com Limited (HKSE: 1688.HK) (simplified Chinese:阿里巴巴网络有限公司; traditional Chinese: 阿里巴巴網絡有限公司),), the flagship company of Alibaba Group, is the world’s largest online business-to-business trading platform for small businesses.

Founded in Hangzhou in eastern China, Alibaba.com has four marketplaces. The company’s English language international marketplace (www.alibaba.com) serves to bring together importers and exporters from more than 240 countries and regions. The China marketplace (www.1688.com) is developed for domestic business-to-business trade in China. It also has a Japanese marketplace (www.alibaba.co.jp), which is focused on facilitating trade to and from Japan through an associated company. In addition, Alibaba.com offers a transaction-based wholesale platform, AliExpress (www.aliexpress.com), which allows smaller buyers to buy small quantities of goods at wholesale prices.

The company claims that together these marketplaces have more than 65 million registered users. Alibaba.com was listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the IPO price of HK$13.5 on 6 November 2007, raising HK$13.1 billion (US$1.7 billion) in the second-largest initial public offering sale of an Internet company after Google Inc.

Taobao Marketplace

Taobao Marketplace (www.taobao.com), previously known as Taobao, is the biggest C2C online shopping platform in China. Founded in 2003, it provides a wide variety of product offerings. The company claims that it served more than 370 million registered users as of the end of 2010.

Taobao Mall

Taobao Mall (www.tmall.com) was introduced in April 2008 as a dedicated B2C platform to complement Taobao’s C2C marketplace and became an independent business in June 2011. It is now a major online shopping destination for quality, brand name goods in China.

eTao

eTao was beta-launched by Taobao in October 2010 as an independent search engine and became an independent business in June 2011. It is the most comprehensive shopping search engine in China, covering product results from all major Chinese online shopping platforms.

Alipay

Launched in 2004, Alipay (www.alipay.com) is a third-party online payment platform. According to analyst research report, Alipay has the biggest market share in China. The company claims it had more than 550 million registered users as of the end of 2010. In 2011, it was the largest online payment system in the world by value of transactions. [2]

Alipay provides a payment service called escrow,[2] in which consumers can verify whether they are happy with goods they have bought before releasing money to the seller.

In China, Alipay partners with more than 65 financial institutions including Visa and MasterCard to provide payment solutions for Taobao as well as more than 500,000 Chinese businesses. Internationally, Alipay helps more than 300 merchants and sellers worldwide sell directly to consumers in China. It currently supports transactions in 12 major foreign currencies. Alipay is an affiliate of Alibaba Group.

The 2009 transfer of Alipay's ownership from the Alibaba Group to a private company controlled by Jack Ma was controversial, with media reports in 2011 that Yahoo! and Softbank (Alibaba Group's controlling shareholders) were not informed of the sale for nominal value. Chinese business publication Century Weekly criticised the actions of Ma,[3] while Ma stated that Alibaba Group's board of directors were aware of the transaction. The ownership dispute was resolved by Alibaba, Yahoo! and Softbank in July 2011.[4]

Alibaba Cloud Computing

Alibaba Cloud Computing aims to build an advanced data-centric cloud computing service platform, including e-commerce data mining, high-speed massive e-commerce data processing, and as well as data customization. It was established in September 2009 in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of Alibaba Group.

China Yahoo!

In October 2005, Alibaba Group formed a strategic partnership with Yahoo! Inc and acquired China Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com.cn), which is a Chinese portal with a focus on essential Internet services including news, email and search.

Development history

  • In December 1998, Jack Ma and other 17 founders released their first online marketplace named "Alibaba Online".
  • From 1999 to 2000, Alibaba Group raised a total of US$25 million from SoftBank, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity and some other institutions.
  • In December 2001, Alibaba.com achieved profitability.
  • In May 2003, Taobao was founded as a consumer e-commerce platform.
  • In December 2004, Alipay became an independent business.
  • In October 2005, Alibaba Group took over the operation of China Yahoo! as part of its strategic partnership with Yahoo! Inc.
  • In November, 2007, Alibaba.com successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
  • In April 2008, Taobao established Taobao Mall, a dedicated B2C platform, to complement its C2C marketplace.
  • In September 2008, Alibaba Group R&D Institute was established.
  • In September 2009, Alibaba Group established Alibaba Cloud Computing in conjunction with its 10-year anniversary.
  • In May 2010, Alibaba Group announced a plan to earmark 0.3% of its annual revenues to fund environmental protection initiatives.
  • In October 2010, Taobao beta-launched eTao as an independent shopping search engine.
  • In June 2011, Alibaba Group reorganized Taobao into three separate companies: Taobao Marketplace, Taobao Mall and eTao.
  • In July 2011, Alibaba Group launched its first self-developed mobile operating system, Aliyun over K-Touch Cloud Smartphone. A customized Android system of a Tablet PC running the Aliyun OS will be launched by the end of 2011.[5]

References

  1. ^ "Where did Alibaba, the brand name, come from?". Snark Hunting. 15 October 2007.
  2. ^ a b [1] The Economist An internet with Chinese characteristics.
  3. ^ Caixin Online (2011). How Jack Ma's Mistake Damaged China's Market. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
  4. ^ Dealbook (2011). Yahoo and Alibaba Resolve Dispute Over Alipay. Retrieved 30 July 2011.
  5. ^ Alibaba launches smartphone running its Clouds OS

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