Alibaba planning to strengthen its global presence

Alibaba is one of the most fast growing businesses in the world. Recently the company has emerged to be one of the top names in the industry after becoming the giants of e-commerce industry as well as the company has largest B2B business in the world. The company has surpassed as well as broke its own records. “It may share the name of a kebab shop franchise, but Alibaba is in fact the world's largest e-commerce company eclipsing the likes of EBay and Amazon.” Moreover, the company has already made a great impact on the market as it launched the sites Taobao and Alipay which are its equivalents of EBay and PayPal respectively.

Sydney Morning Herald said that Alibaba will and has become the easiest ways for businesses wanting to reach the Chinese market following the signing of Australia's free trade agreement with China. The business of Alibaba is massive and they take on every single opportunity in their way. This is the reason as to why over 120 million people shop on Alibaba sites every day. It is known that Alibaba owns and operates its three main business sites which are Taobao.com, Tmall.com and Alibaba.com. These sites are the version of EBay for the booming Chinese market.

Hence, Alibaba is an online retail powerhouse which sells almost everything from car parts to wedding dresses. Taobao allows the public to sell to each other, while Tmall is designed to connect businesses to distributors and consumers. Therefore the company has planned to expand its business and take it to further overseas by launching its business and services in Australia as well.

Alibaba sailed past its own Singles’ Day record

Singles’ Day started out as a joke among a group of male college students attending Nanjing University in the 1990s. Originally called Bachelor Day because it was celebrated only by young men, the holiday has since morphed into a nationwide holiday for all genders, with its own traditions. China Daily reports “People eat four fried dough sticks representing the four ones in 11.11. Blind-date parties and even matchmaking fairs have become popular November 11 events.” Today is Singles’ Day in China which is also marked as China’s biggest e-commerce sales day.

Alibaba says “Last year, Alibaba did $5.75 billion in sales across its two biggest shopping services — its Taobao Marketplace and T-Mall site for brands — and the company easily matched that this year, reaching that number with more than ten hours left in the day.” However this year, the company has broken its own record to sail past the staggering figure of $5.75 billion in sales. The Singles’ Day shopping sales exceeded last year’s sales posting around over $2 billion in the first hour only. The company hit the mark of $1 billion in less than 20 minutes.

Alibaba said that more than half of the sales came from smartphones and tablets. “Back to the early Alibaba announcements, and it’s interesting to note that 48 percent of that initial $1 billion in goods — and 46 percent of the first $2 billion — were bought using smartphones and tablets.” It was all expected as the founder of the company that Alibaba is confident of hitting such high numbers. It was estimated that the company will be shipping more than 200 million packages.

Singles’ Day is not only known as the biggest e-commerce sales day in China but it stands out the biggest e-commerce sales day all across the world. The company has proven to be one of the fastest growing business in recent times and as the result shows, there is no doubt about the fact that it might be the top company in near future.

Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, is the richest person in China

 Forbes names Alibaba founder Jack Ma richest person in China and for that matters, Alibaba is also the world’s largest B2B business currently. Jack Ma’s company has clearly shown skyrocketing performances in terms of raising profits and revenues on big margins. When Forbes announced, it was the first time that Jack Ma topped the list of Forbes annual ranking of China’s richest person. BBC reports “The founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, Jack Ma, is China's richest person with a fortune of $19.5bn (£12bn), Forbes Media said. Mr. Ma's wealth more than doubled from last year's $7.1bn after his company's record-setting share sale in September.”

Forbes list showed that Entertainment firm Wanda's chief executive Wang Jianlin was knocked out of first place into fourth as the founder of Alibaba took over. Moreover, the number of billionaires in the country rose up to 242 in 2014 when compared to last year’s 168. Forbes said “Mr. Ma, a former English teacher, started the company 15 years ago. Alibaba is now valued at more than $240bn. It is seen as an industry leader commanding more than 80% of China's significant online e-commerce market. Earlier this year Mr. Ma also topped another rich list, China-based Hurun, which put his wealth at a much higher $25bn.” 

Baidu’s owner, Robin Li who is known as an inventor of China’s Google was ranked second in the list with an estimated net worth of $14.7bn, up from $11.1bn the year before. Ma Huateng, also known as Pony Ma, of Tencent, China's biggest online firm, held third position. The company is the parent of the most popular messaging app in China WeChat.