Just when I thought Amazon was going to dominate the world. BAM! Here comes Alibaba. News of their splashy & profitable IPO is old news. I knew, generally, that Alibaba was an “e-commerce giant” like Amazon. But oh so much more, as it turns out.
Alibaba owns or has a minority interest in ALL of these companies, whereas in the US, similar businesses are independently owned (aka, Amazon, eBay, Paypal):
* Alibaba.com. International e-commerce site.
* 1688.com. Chinese business-to-business trade, bringing in 30 million per day in transactional value.
* AliExpress.com. Online retail site for small businesses.
* Taobao. Similar to eBay, Taobao is a consumer-to-consumer online shopping platform. In 2013, it was the 3rd most frequented website in China, per Bloomberg.
* Tmall.com. Similar to Amazon, it offers global retail brands for sale. It was the 8th most visited website in 2013, per Bloomberg.
* Juhuasuan.com. Similar to Gilt, ideeli, or Fab.com, this site offers “flash sales” at discounted
prices.
* eTao.com is a comparison shopping website, like Shopzilla, or TheFind, Overstock, or BizRate. It offers products from within the Alibaba network (Tmall & Taobao) along with global
brands.
* Alipay. Online payment platform, like PayPal. More than half of all of China’s online payments transact through Alipay.
* Aliyun.com. A cloud computing platform. Similar to Apple’s iCloud.
* 11 Main.com. A US shopping site with merchants offering clothing, accessories, & jewelry.
Alibaba is into messaging apps with Laiwang; online media streaming (aka Netflix) with its interest in China Vision Media Group; blogging through Weibo, and car service company, Lyft.
According to Reuters, the Alibaba Group’s websites accounted for 80% of China’s online sales. Read that again. In a county with a population of 1.4 billion people, the Alibaba group ships to 80% of the market that's ordering online. Thud. That’s me falling on the floor.
No wonder the IPO blew up raking in over 21 billion. The Alibaba Group is estimated to be worth over 200 billion. To put that in perspective, in 2013, Ireland had the #47th highest GDP in the world according to the World Bank at 217 billion. Alibaba’s worth is similar to the value of an entire county.
While Jeff Bezos is worrying about Hachette Book Group, Alibaba is marching towards world dominion.
Alibaba owns or has a minority interest in ALL of these companies, whereas in the US, similar businesses are independently owned (aka, Amazon, eBay, Paypal):
* Alibaba.com. International e-commerce site.
* 1688.com. Chinese business-to-business trade, bringing in 30 million per day in transactional value.
* AliExpress.com. Online retail site for small businesses.
* Taobao. Similar to eBay, Taobao is a consumer-to-consumer online shopping platform. In 2013, it was the 3rd most frequented website in China, per Bloomberg.
* Tmall.com. Similar to Amazon, it offers global retail brands for sale. It was the 8th most visited website in 2013, per Bloomberg.
* Juhuasuan.com. Similar to Gilt, ideeli, or Fab.com, this site offers “flash sales” at discounted
prices.
* eTao.com is a comparison shopping website, like Shopzilla, or TheFind, Overstock, or BizRate. It offers products from within the Alibaba network (Tmall & Taobao) along with global
brands.
* Alipay. Online payment platform, like PayPal. More than half of all of China’s online payments transact through Alipay.
* Aliyun.com. A cloud computing platform. Similar to Apple’s iCloud.
* 11 Main.com. A US shopping site with merchants offering clothing, accessories, & jewelry.
Alibaba is into messaging apps with Laiwang; online media streaming (aka Netflix) with its interest in China Vision Media Group; blogging through Weibo, and car service company, Lyft.
According to Reuters, the Alibaba Group’s websites accounted for 80% of China’s online sales. Read that again. In a county with a population of 1.4 billion people, the Alibaba group ships to 80% of the market that's ordering online. Thud. That’s me falling on the floor.
No wonder the IPO blew up raking in over 21 billion. The Alibaba Group is estimated to be worth over 200 billion. To put that in perspective, in 2013, Ireland had the #47th highest GDP in the world according to the World Bank at 217 billion. Alibaba’s worth is similar to the value of an entire county.
While Jeff Bezos is worrying about Hachette Book Group, Alibaba is marching towards world dominion.