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| Alibab Group |
Alibaba Group is a privately owned Hangzhou-based family of Internet-based businesses that includes business-to-business international trade, retail and payment platforms, and data-centric cloud computing services. It was founded in 1999 by 18 founders, led by Ma Yun (Jack Ma). The company raised US$25 million from Softbank, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, and other institutions in 1999 to 2000.
On 10 August 2005, Yahoo! announced that it would purchase a 40% stake in the company for US$1bn plus Yahoo!'s Chinese assets. Alibaba Group then took charge of China Yahoo!, and Alibaba Group's founder Jack Ma remained in charge of Alibaba Group.
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.com - online retail marketplace
- Alipay - third-party online payment platform
- Alibaba Cloud Computing - advanced data-centric cloud computing services platform
- China Yahoo! - - one of China’s leading internet portals.
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 ‘Forty thieves'. 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 — forty thieves. Alibaba is not the thief. 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!"
Alibaba.com Limited 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.
Other Alibaba Group companies and affiliated entities
Taobao (www.taobao.com) is the biggest online retail 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.
In 2008, Taobao introduced Taobao Mall (www.tmall.com), a dedicated B2C platform, to complement its C2C marketplace. In addition, it offers a myriad of features and services that serve to create better user experience. Alimama (www.alimama.com), an advertising exchange and affiliate network for Chinese publishers, and Koubei.com (www.koubei.com), one of the largest classified listing platforms in China, are also part of the Taobao platform.
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.
Alipay provides a payment service called escrow, 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 65 financial institutions including Visa and MasterCard to provide payment solutions for 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.
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.