Alibaba Group news

Starbucks China and Alibaba have announced 'a deep, strategic New Retail partnership'. Alliance between giants Next month, Starbucks China will begin to offer coffee delivery via Alibaba's Ele.me. The service will be available at 150 stores in Beijing and Shanghai and the coffee chain will also open delivery kitchens to fulfil orders. The service is expected to be rolled-out to more than 2,...

Following Alibaba's entry into Africa in late 2017 the business continues to invest in the market. We look at how Alibaba Business School and UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) have developed a programme to support young entrepeneurs in Africa. Teaching about the impact of ecommerce Alibaba recently used its Hangzhou headquarters to host the eFounders Fellowship Pro...

With so much going on in the ecommerce and technology space in China, we've selected the top news from Alibaba Group this week. Alibaba Group's Rural Taobao to expand to 1,000 counties Rural Taobao is one of Alibaba’s three main strategic projects besides globalisation and cloud computing. It aims to improve the living conditions of China’s rural regions by providing high quality products a...

Alibaba has opened an office in Malaysia, its first country office in Southeast Asia. First Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) hub outside China The new office will serve as a one-stop solution centre for local businesses, helping them identify global trade opportunities and take advantage of digital innovations. It will offer training courses to assist young entrepreneurs to export the...

Alibaba continues to revamp Sun Art hypermarkets in China, integrating digital features across RT Mart banner stores up and down the country. Influence of Alibaba RT-Mart has finished the digital transformation of 100 stores and Alibaba plans to support transformation of 300 more outlets by end of the year. Revamped stores will be fully integrated into Alibaba’s New Retail ecosystem, and ac...

Alibaba has expanded into South Asia through its acquisition of Daraz. Who's Daraz? Daraz was founded in 2012 by Rocket Internet and operates in Pakistan as well as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Rocket said in a statement that Alibaba has acquired the entire Daraz business. The website will continue to operate under the same brand following the sale to Alibaba. Daraz is mainl...

Alibaba has reported a 58% increase in annual revenue (US$39,898m) for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2018. Overall performance Revenue from core online commerce (marketplace) activities rose 60% to US$34,120m and from cloud computing by 101% to US$2,135m. Digital media and entertainment sales rose 33% to US$3,119m. The number of annual active consumers on Alibaba Group’s China retail m...

Hema Fresh has introduced 24-delivery services in its 25 stores in Beijing and Shanghai. Available for most products Users of the Hema app who live within a 3 kilometre radius of a store can now get the same 30 minutes delivery service between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. as well. The new offering includes most items in the store, except for some fresh produce. Delivery time for cooked meals, whic...

Walmart has debuted its first small-format supermarket in the southern city of Shenzhen. Smaller store with optimised assortment The size of the store is about 1,200 sq m, around 10 percent the size of a regular Walmart Hypermarket, made to better accommodate shoppers in residential areas. The store stocks more than 8,000 items. Roughly 90 percent of items offered for sale in the store wil...

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 ...