At this point, it is no secret to anyone that he no longer only has immense control of online sales in China: it is the largest eCommerce group in the world. Alibaba’s history has led this giant to cross borders and is currently the king of eCommerce.
The beginnings of Alibaba’s history: the idea of Jack Ma
founder of Alibaba, was an English teacher who in 1999 together with 17 friends and a venture capitalist decided to carry out his idea of create a platform focused on the sector, in which he wanted to unite Chinese companies with companies abroad, creating an agile and above all safe.
You can learn much more about the history of in the following video:
Of course, that certainty was what attracted a lot of companies who were interested in the , but were concerned about the irregularities that generally occurred in the business environment in the Asian country.
Alibaba consolidates and creates new companies
Slowly Alibaba was consolidating itself as one of the great players of eCommerce, and not only with its main platform, but Ma began to create a set of services They are able to adapt to all kinds of needs.
Among them is , known for its online payment service alipaythe Chinese equivalent of which has become the company most successful worldwide In addition to becoming one of the most valuable startups in the world, with a valuation close to 9 billion Dollars (7,800 million euros approximately).
So far, Alibaba has achieved consolidate a large number of subsidiariesincluding B2B, retail and consumer-to-consumer sales portals like (their version of eBay), as well as price comparison and cloud storage services… among many others. Specifically, Alibaba brands are grouped into these nine companies:
- Taobao.com It is a marketplace that has similarities with eBay. Defined by Alibaba as “Social Commerce”, it is the Chinese leader in mobile eCommerce.
- T mall The largest B2C eCommerce in China, in which brands from around the world, such as those from, have their own store.
- A global marketplace that has a presence in Spain, designed for Chinese brands to send their products to customers around the world.
- alibaba.com A B2B marketplace that operates in 180 countries around the world
- 1688.com Chinese marketplace specialized in products for the home and decoration
- alimama Digital marketing platform that offers services to sellers who use the group’s marketplaces
- AlibabaCloud One of the largest IaaS (Internet as a service) service providers in the world, offering cloud services to companies around the globe
- Ant Financial It was born in 2014, despite the fact that it brings together the business generated by Alipay (the group’s online payment method) that was launched in 2004
- Cainiao The logistics operator of the group, which offers support to Alibaba’s activities in China
Alibaba’s IPO overwhelms Wall Street forecasts
But the incredible story of Alibaba does not end there. After your in which managed to break all records by raising a total of 25,000 million dollars (close to 22,000 million euros), the giant of the managed to consolidate his world fame.
Alibaba’s great empire did not stop there, as its international expansion plans have gradually been consolidated, including the progression of itswith which he wants to take over (also) physical retail in China.
An example of this commitment to offline is the creation of in Spain hand in hand with taking advantage of the celebration on November 11, a day of incredible sales that Alibaba created in 2009 and that it has managed to position itself as the largest online shopping day in the world.
To give you an idea of how the celebration has evolved, in 2014, 9,340 million dollars (just over €8,250 million) during that day. In 2017, that number rose to $25 billion. In 2018, in just 24 hours, Alibaba got (just over 26,000 million euros). Approximately what the entire Spanish eCommerce invoices in a year.
The number of Alibaba customers continues to grow
Alibaba’s success story never ceases to amaze us: no company in history has had as many clients as her. The exorbitant scale that the king of eCommerce has acquired is such that, according to China alone, it has just reached 636 million annual active consumers, 23.5% more than the previous year.
To give us a clearer idea of the power of this giant, its number of clients in China is double the current population of the United States. The number of is also incredible: they went from 666 million during the first quarter of 2018 to 669 in the third.
During its , Alibaba achieved (once again) an increase in its 41% turnoveruntil reaching 15,224 million euroswhile its profits, also on the rise, had an increase of 37%, to 4,290 million euros.
Although the history of Alibaba has focused on eCommerce, on which its business depends almost entirely since represents 87%cloud services have become one of its big bets since registered a growth of 84%.
A new era begins in the history of Alibaba: the goodbye of Jack Ma
In this way, the growth of Alibaba has been a constant “Open Sesame” of wealth that has not stopped bringing income and success to its founder, who in September 2018 to the company after two decades of devoting himself body and soul to turning it into a great empire.
Ma will effectively leave the presidency next September 2019, at which time current CEO Daniel Zhang will take over his role.
“It is not the end of one era, but the beginning of another” assured the Chinese eCommerce tycoon, and surely we will continue to learn more about the great history of Alibaba.
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