Alibaba Group consists of the most important wholesale b2b marketplace, Alibaba.com, AliExpress, an online retail marketplace, the biggest Chinese shopping platform Taobao.com and many others. All of those companies add up to the impressive profits achieved every year. Alibaba Group Holding’s revenue is $132.3B.
Alibaba Group
The Alibaba.com platform is the company’s first website. It was established along with its Chinese version 阿里巴巴1688 in 1999. Since then, the Alibaba group has constantly been developing and now includes many companies dealing not only with trade but also with electronic payments and cloud services. The annual number of active consumers on its online shopping properties in China reached 903 million by the first quarter of 2022. Below we discuss the largest companies belonging to the Alibaba Group.
Alibaba.com
As we mentioned, Alibaba.com was the first Alibaba Group website. It is the leading platform for cross-border wholesale e-commerce used by millions of buyers and suppliers around the world. It is a b2b (business-to-business) platform. Suppliers on Alibaba are mainly manufacturers, trading companies, wholesalers, and retailers, doing business in import and export. The online store offers hundreds of millions of products from almost every industry. It is the number one online sourcing place.
阿里巴巴1688
1688 is the leading trading platform for Chinese SMEs. It connects manufacturers with wholesalers/trade companies in China. The most frequently sold/purchased groups of goods in 1688 include clothing, accessories, electronics, and computers, as well as home decor and furniture. It has about 120 million users and 10 million suppliers of products from 49 main categories. It is only available in Chinese.
Taobao Marketplace
Taobao is China’s main online shopping marketplace and one of the most visited websites in the world. Unlike Alibaba or 1688, Taobao is a c2c (consumer-to-consumer) platform. You can buy goods from other users at a fixed price or at an auction. The Taobao app is particularly popular, reaching 875 million monthly active users.
Alimama
Alimama is a platform that provides marketing technologies for companies that use Alibaba Group shopping websites. This means that it can be used by sellers on Alibaba, 1688, etc. Alimama’s online marketing technologies can be used on desktops and mobile devices. Alimama also has an affiliate marketing program, which means companies can advertise on third-party apps and websites. That way, they can significantly expand their reach beyond the purchasing platforms that are part of the Alibaba Group.
Tmall
A platform where you can buy products from many Chinese and famous foreign brands. Tmall is a b2c (business-to-customer) platform that serves both Chinese and international consumers. It is the most visited Chinese platform of this type and is dynamically developing. Among the world’s popular brands, on Tmall, we can find, for instance:
- Vans
- Crocs
- Puma
- New Balance
- Chanel
- Dior
- Sony
- Mini
- and many others.
Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud is a company that provides a range of digital technology services to consumers around the world. The scope of its activities includes databases, storage, network virtualization, security, management, applications, big data analytics, and many others. For Alibaba Group, Alibaba Cloud is its pillar of digital technology and intelligence. In 2020, it was the leader among Chinese companies providing this type of service and the 3rd such company in the world in terms of revenue.
AliExpress
AliExpress is a retail shopping website for consumers around the world. It targets individual users. Via the platform, international buyers have the opportunity to purchase Chinese goods directly from manufacturers and distributors. Due to such a diverse group of users, the website is available in several language versions. It can be used in 230 different countries and regions. Buyers on AliExpress are natural persons and companies planning to resell their products.
How to buy on AliExpress?
Lazada
Lazada is another leading and rapidly growing e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. Its main goal is to help consumers easily connect with local, small and medium-sized companies, as well as regional and global brands. The service has over 130 million active users per year. Lazada is a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, which was founded by the European company Rocket Internet. It serves customers from 6 countries: Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.
Cainiao Network
A logistics company that aims to deliver orders within 24 hours to Chinese consumers and 72 hours to overseas consumers. To do this, it builds and develops a global fulfillment network with its logistics partners. It supports over 200 countries and regions.
DingTalk
DingTalk is a digital workplace. It provides new solutions for working, sharing, and collaboration in companies and organizations. The company’s activity does not only apply to trading companies but also to institutions such as schools and other educational institutions. DingTalk is perfect for remote work and increases its efficiency. The application has 500 million monthly active users. The DingTalk app is available for download on iOS, macOS, Android, and Windows.
Freshippo
Freshippo is a retail chain that uses its physical stores as warehouses to fulfill online orders. It ensures the delivery of goods purchased online in just 30 minutes to a customer located up to 3 kilometers from a Freshippo store. Orders from Freshippo are delivered by the Ele.me company described below and other similar services. The company has 300 stores in 27 cities in China.
Youku
Youku is one of China’s leading video hosting platforms that mainly provides users with movies, series, and TV shows. It is compared to Youtube, which is blocked in China. It ranks 3rd among such sites in terms of monthly active users in the country. It is also used for marketing purposes to reach a wider group of customers.
Ele.me
Ele.me is a food delivery service. It serves over 2,000 Chinese cities and, aside from delivering meals from many restaurants, it also delivers orders from popular chain stores. Ele.me pays great attention to the quality of food and declares that if a restaurant does not meet the company’s requirements or violates its rules, it is removed from the application. Ele.me users can even order pharmaceutical products and flowers that will be delivered straight to their homes. The company became part of the Alibaba Group in 2018.
10 facts about Alibaba that you probably didn’t know!