Alibaba Group news

Joint venture with Alibaba-backed technology company to strengthen retail concepts. Initial focus on China market Aeon has partnered with DeepBlue Technology, a Chinese startup company backed by Alibaba, to develop AI driven store concepts. With an initial investment of $1m, Aeon now owns a 65% stake in a joint venture that will develop smart, small format stores. The initial target market ...

Following the acquisition of a stake in Sun Art by Alibaba in November 2017, the latter has announced that it is set to begin implementing its aim to blur online and offline retailing as part of a digital transformation of both RT Mart and Auchan hypermarkets in China. Alibaba’s ‘New retail’ begins to take shape Initially Alibaba has said it will enhance two stores, one each in Shanghai...

Sun Art Retail has posted its 2017 annual results, with revenue rising 1.9% to RMB102,320m (US$16,130m) and profit up 2.9%. However, its revenue growth has slowed down compared to previous years, having grown 6.6% (CAGR) between 2012 - 2016. We review the retailer's recent performance and future outlook.  Reinventing hypermarkets During the year, the Group opened 18 hypermarkets, of which o...

Alibaba Group is leading a US$300m investment into BigBasket India's top online grocer, heating up the battle among grocery ecommerce players in India. Further expansion Besides Alibaba, existing investors UH Equity, Abraaj Group and Bessemer Venture Partners participated in the latest round. BigBasket will deploy the funds into building farmer networks, warehouses and delivery infrastructu...

Alibaba has reported a 56% jump in its third-quarter revenue, and New Retail is a key driver. Overall performance Revenue from core online commerce (marketplace) activities rose 57 per cent to US$11.257bn and from cloud computing by 104% to US$553m. Digital media and entertainment sales rose 33% to US$832 million. The number of annual active consumers on Alibaba Group’s China retail mark...

Alibaba plans to open 2,000 branches of its Hema Fresh supermarket in China over the next three to five years. From 22 to 2,000 By the end of 2017, Hema would be operating 22 stores in Beijing, Guiyang, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen. In December, it opened its second store in Ningbo and will open another outlet in Suzhou by the end of the year. The aggressive expansion plan shows Aliba...

Chinese e-commerce retailer Alibaba has said it sees big potential in Africa. We look at its general strategy for entering a market, what is doing in the region and what this means for its future development in Africa. Strategy: market entry Alibaba’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. To do this, when entering a new market, it targets three main areas; 1. Offering shop...

The three groups have announced a strategic alliance that brings together their online and offline expertise to explore new retail opportunities in China’s food and grocery retail sector. Auchan remains the biggest shareholder of Sun Art Alibaba will invest a total of HK$22.4bn (US$2.88bn) to obtain an aggregate direct and indirect stake of 36.16% in Sun Art, the operator of RT-Mart and Auc...

China's ecommerce leader Alibaba has sought approval from the Competition Commission of India to acquire a stake in the country's top online grocer Big Basket. Grocery seen as the next big opportunity for online players Amazon has received approval to sell food products in India, which may include developing private label food products for the business. It is planning a US$500m investment i...

Alibaba Group has released their Q2 results for the three months ending in September. Sales rose 61% to CNY55.1 bn (US$8.3 bn) for the same period last year. Lead-up to Singles' day Alibaba's Q2 results have somewhat been subdued in previous years. With strong focus on their 11.11 festival , one could perceive their second quarterly results more or less a formality. Certainly this year...