The brand of the Alibaba workplace constructing is seen within the Huangpu District in Shanghai, June 16, 2023.
Costfoto | Nurphoto | Getty Photographs
Chinese language tech big Alibaba Group is betting on its abroad companies whereas home consumption progress stays sluggish.
One shiny spot in Alibaba’s newest earnings report was its worldwide e-commerce enterprise unit, which posted income of 28.5 billion Chinese language yuan ($4 billion) within the December quarter, up 44% from a yr in the past. Alibaba Worldwide Digital Commerce Group contains platforms like AliExpress, Lazada, Daraz and Trendyol.
“The robust efficiency was pushed by strong progress throughout all of AIDC’s retail platforms, particularly from the crossborder AliExpress Alternative enterprise,” the corporate stated.
In the meantime, income from the corporate’s core e-commerce companies Taobao and Tmall Group was $18.1 billion, rising solely 2% year-over-year.
“We’ll step up funding to enhance customers’ core experiences to drive progress in Taobao and Tmall Group and strengthen market management within the coming yr. We may also focus our sources on growing public cloud merchandise and sustaining the robust progress momentum in worldwide commerce enterprise,” Eddie Wu, CEO of Alibaba Group, stated earlier this month.
The tightening of the ship is probably going designed to consolidate progress trajectories, de-risk uncertainties of working in a number of, aggressive markets …
Yinglan Tan
founding managing accomplice, Insignia Ventures Companions
Regardless of AIDC’s robust gross sales progress, losses additionally surged year-over-year principally from “elevated funding in companies, together with AliExpress’ Alternative and Trendyol’s worldwide enterprise, partly offset by enhancements in monetization.”
Subsidiary shakeup
The quarterly outcomes comply with a collection of administration shuffles at Alibaba and its subunits. Pakistan e-commerce platform Daraz changed its CEO Bjarke Mikkelsen on Jan. 24. James Dong, CEO of Southeast Asian e-commerce big Lazada Group, was named as Daraz’s appearing CEO. The corporate stated he would “work on a deeper integration between Daraz and our sister firms.”
In early January, Lazada executed a mass layoff throughout Southeast Asia, which affected workers of all ranges together with senior administration. The cuts hit all departments together with business, retail and advertising.
Individuals at Alibaba Worldwide acquainted with the matter instructed CNBC that the Lazada layoffs have been supposed to “streamline decision-making and enhance organizational and enterprise effectivity.”
“These newest administration shake-ups have their roots within the Alibaba cut up final yr, largely a technique to navigate the regulatory developments in China which have lengthy put strain on the tech big,” stated Yinglan Tan, founding managing accomplice at Insignia Ventures Companions.
“AIDC’s nature as a portfolio of numerous and individually complicated companies starting from Daraz to Lazada additionally performs a key issue. The tightening of the ship is probably going designed to consolidate progress trajectories, de-risk uncertainties of working in a number of, aggressive markets …,” stated Tan.
Management adjustments

In March, Alibaba had stated it might cut up itself into six enterprise models and pave the way in which for particular person inventory listings. Zhang instructed traders the transfer would enable Alibaba’s enterprise “to turn into extra agile, improve their enterprise decision-making, and reply quicker to market adjustments.”
“Holding their organisations agile and adaptable is all the time on the high of the agenda of Chinese language tech leaders. This has been made much more pressing with the rise of opponents and adjustments within the exterior surroundings,” stated Momentum Works in a January report titled “Understanding Alibaba’s most radical adjustments in historical past.”
Mirroring its mother or father firm’s strikes, Lazada’s management group has additionally seen its fair proportion of adjustments in recent times.
Dong took over as Lazada Group CEO from Chun Li in June 2022, after operating the corporate’s Thailand and Vietnam operations. Previous to that, Dong was head of globalization technique and company improvement at Alibaba Group and a one-time enterprise assistant to former CEO Zhang.
In 2020, Li took over the function from Pierre Poignant, who succeeded Lucy Peng in December 2018, who was simply 9 months into the job.
Intense competitors
The e-commerce enterprise that when propelled Alibaba to success has run into challenges with upstart opponents comparable to PDD, whereas consumption progress in China stays sluggish.
China-based PDD Holdings reported third-quarter income practically doubled, far outpacing Alibaba’s 9% progress throughout the identical interval. PDD stated income within the quarter was $9.44 billion, up 94% from $4.99 billion in the identical quarter of 2022. Alibaba posted 9% year-on-year income progress within the third quarter to about $31 billion.
Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares have plunged from an all-time excessive of 309.4 Hong Kong {dollars} ($39.59) on Oct. 28, 2020, based on LSEG knowledge. Shares closed at HK$71.50 on Monday.