Alibaba Comes Up With A Chinese Online Food Delivery Service

Alibaba has vowed to invest $1.25 billion to come up with a Chinese online food delivery service.

 Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has finally agreed to make a massive investment worth US$1.25 billion. This investment is made in the online Chinese food delivery known as Ele.me, as reported by a renowned business weekly, known as Caixin, on Friday.

According to the report provided by an unidentified sourced, Alibaba Group will get around 27.7% stakes in Ele.me, and this is will make it the biggest stakeholder in the venture. So far, Ele.me and Alibaba have refused to comment on the matter.

Ele.me, which apparently translates into “Hungry Now?” has become part of the everyday life in China, which comes under the criterion of online-to-offline (O2O) services. This service will comprise of facilities like reviewing apps for restaurants along with taxi hailing that will link the users on smartphones with offline business ventures.

During the beginning of 2015, the food delivery service has been successful in raising US$350 million from various investors. This includes big names, such as Tencent Holdings, Sequoia Capital, JD.com, CITIC Private Equity, and Dianping.

Things are changing with time where the locals are completely dependent on smartphones for their everyday chores. Bookings and reservations for restaurants are even done from their smartphones with convenience. The internet tycoons in the Chinese market, such as Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba are investing heavily in services of this nature that will help them to lure more users on their ecosystem.

Alibaba has made a mark in the Information Technology sector becoming the largest ecommerce company. Tencent and Alibaba have been spending heavily in services of a similar nature where both the organizations have accumulatively invested more than US $8 billion in the previous year. The services are quite similar in nature to that which is used to hail taxis, such as Didi Dache and Kuadi Dache, as reported by Reuters.

Hence  the efforts by Alibaba in the Information Technology sector are commendable and deserve to be appreciated since both these companies are revolutionizing the Chinese market. There is a dire need for services of similar nature, as the world needs to have everything conveniently placed in the form of apps in their smartphones. A food delivery service in the form of Ele.me will not only satisfy the cravings of the masses but in return, will churn out a lot of revenue for them. All over the world, consumers need fresh food; thus, what could be better! The Chinese corporation is also excited about the investment.