| From: Glenn Petersen | 11/8/2019 9:13:39 AM | | | | | | Alibaba to invest $3.3B to bump its stake in logistics unit Cainiao
Manish Singh @refsrc /
TechCrunch
4:17 am CST • November 8, 2019
cameraImage Credits: Visual China Group / Getty Images
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Alibaba is doubling down on its logistics affiliate Cainiao, two years after acquiring a majority stake in the firm. The Chinese giant said today it would invest an additional 23.3 billion yuan (about $3.33 billion) to raise its equity in Cainiao to 63% from 51%.
In a statement, Alibaba said it will subscribe newly issued Cainiao shares in its latest financing round and also purchase equity interest from a certain, unnamed Cainiao shareholder.
Cainiao was co-founded by Alibaba in 2013 to bring organization in Chinese logistics, particularly around e-commerce deliveries. And it has delivered: Today Cainiao powers a significant volume of Alibaba’s logistics needs in the nation.
The affiliate, which reported $680 million revenue in the quarter that ended in September, matches riders, deliveries and warehouses, underpinning the logistics side of e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall in the same way Alipay underpins the payments side, analysts say.
Department store owner Intime Group, conglomerate Fosun Group, and a number of other logistics firms also own stakes in Cainiao.
In 2017, Alibaba bumped its stake in Cainiao to 51% from 47%, and at the time committed to spend more than 100 billion yuan ($14.3 billion) to expand the logistics business over five years.
The Chinese technology group has tightened its grip on the logistics sector in the nation in recent years. Earlier this year, the company purchased nearly 15% stake of STO Express. As of earlier this year, Alibaba also owned about 10% of ZTO, 11% of YTO, and 27.9% of Best Logistics.
Express delivery and logistics companies are crucial for e-commerce firms, Alibaba said last year. According to the firm, more than 50.7 billion parcels were distributed by e-commerce companies in the nation last year.
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| From: Sr K | 11/8/2019 9:47:46 AM | | | | | | WSJ today, page 1
wsj.com
Alibaba is aiming to raise $10 billion to $15 billion in a second listing in Hong Kong this month, according to people familiar with the matter, reviving the planned offering even as the city’s political climate remains unstable.
BABA owns SCMP, referred to earlier. |
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| To: Sr K who wrote (691) | 11/8/2019 11:55:26 AM | | From: Glenn Petersen | | | | More detail:
Alibaba Seeks to Raise Up to $15 Billion in Hong Kong Share Sale
By Lulu Yilun Chen, Carol Zhong, and Manuel Baigorri
Bloomberg
November 7, 2019
-- It’s said to proceed with listing hearing early next week
-- Alibaba’s share sale comes after a U.S.-China agreement
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is moving ahead with plans to raise as much as $15 billion in a Hong Kong share sale, people with knowledge of the matter said, a major win for a city rocked by months of civil unrest.
Asia’s largest company by market value is now preparing for a listing hearing as mandated by companies that debut on the Hong Kong bourse early next week, the people said, requesting not to be named discussing a private matter. The company declined to comment in an email.
Alibaba’s share sale, which could be the largest globally this year, will be a triumph for a Hong Kong stock exchange that lost many of China’s brightest technology stars to U.S. rivals. The Chinese e-commerce giant had aimed to list as early as over the summer before pro-democracy protests rocked the financial hub, while trade tensions between Washington and Beijing clouded the market’s outlook. On Thursday, the U.S. and China agreed to roll back tariffs on each other’s goods in phases as they work toward a deal.
“They probably want to minimize the risk from a U.S. trade war,” said Danny Law, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Guotai Junan International Holdings Ltd. “It makes a lot of sense.”
Hong Kong’s stock exchange, which reported its worst slide in profit in almost three years, could face pressure from local protesters pushing back on influence from mainland China. Demonstrations are expected to escalate over the weekend as the death of a student inflames rioters who are calling for “flash-mob”-style rallies.
Yet listing closer to home has been a long-time dream of billionaire Jack Ma -- a move that curries favor with Beijing and hedges against trade war risks. A successful Hong Kong share sale could also help finance a costly war of subsidies with Meituan Dianping in food delivery and travel, and divert investor cash from rivals like Meituan and WeChat-operator Tencent Holdings Ltd.
Alibaba could put the capital to work investing in new technologies such as artificial intelligence or fast-expanding affiliates such as Ant Financial. Courting investors closer to home also serves as a buffer of sorts should U.S.-Chinese tensions worsen. Already, U.S. lawmakers such as Senator Marco Rubio are agitating for measures to curb investment flows to Chinese companies, including the extreme option of tossing U.S.-listed firms off American bourses.
Alibaba -- which had roughly $57 billion of cash and equivalents as of September -- rode a national e-commerce boom that stemmed from an increasingly affluent middle class. But like arch-foe Tencent, it’s struggling to sustain growth as the world’s No. 2 economy slows, and China clashes with the U.S. over everything from trade and technology to investment.
At home, signs of strain are growing. China’s gross domestic product growth is expected to slump below 6%, which would be the economy’s slowest pace of expansion in three decades. Still, Alibaba last week reported a 40% surge in quarterly revenue, underscoring the resilience of consumer spending. The company on Monday will wrap up its most important sales event of the year -- Singles’ Day -- offering further clues on the health of consumption.
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 11/11/2019 12:55:33 PM | | | | | | Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales top $38 billion
Manish Singh @refsrc /
TechCrunch
10:13 am CST • November 11, 2019
After 24 hours of frenzied buying and selling, and weeks of aggressive advertising and promotions before it, the Alibaba Group said today its sales hit another record high on Singles’ Day, the biggest shopping day on the planet.
The Chinese e-commerce giant said its platforms sold goods worth 268 billion yuan, or $38.4 billion today, easily exceeding last year’s record $30.7 billion haul. Electronics gadgets and fashion items were among the most sold goods in the 11th edition of the Singles’ Day annual event, company executives said in an interview.
More than half a billion people from a number of countries participate in the event, which is China’s equivalent to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Except, Singles’ Day is much larger. The five-day Black Friday clocked under $25 billion in sales last year. Cyber Monday clocked less than $8 billion. Alibaba Group said earlier today that it had netted its first $1 billion in sales in just 68 seconds and first $10 billion in half an hour.
To bridge people in China and those living elsewhere, Alibaba also maintains a number of dedicated websites. AliExpress sells goods from Chinese brands to international residents; Tmall sells goods from global brands to China; and Taobao sells Chinese brands’ goods to people in China. Lazada, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group that caters to Southeast Asian markets, saw the number of buyers and merchants double this year. “This year, both buyers and merchants have more than doubled and we’ve already seen a series of record-breaking moments. We’re looking forward to sharing even more good news,” said Yin Jing, co-president of Lazada.
The retail giant said earlier today that dozens of brands including Apple, L’Oreal, and Dyson had received more than 100 million yuan, or $14 million, in pre-orders.
The shopping glitz hosted a number of celebrities including Taylor Swift and Asian pop icon GEM to generate buzz. This year, the Hangzhou-headquartered firm also focused on live-streaming via its platform, a phenomenon that has gained significant traction in China.
In a live-streamed video, Kim Kardashian announced last week that her fragrance brand KKW will be sold on Tmall this Singles’ Day.
One figure who was missing from the action was Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, who retired in September this year. In previous years, Ma has not only delivered powerful speeches but also put on performances for employees and customers.
At a press briefing an hour ago, Alibaba Chief Technology Officer Jeff Zhang described 11.11 as an “airplane flying at turbo speed,” adding that making this supposed airplane more efficient has been the company’s biggest focus.
One such improvement is logistics network, which is still a laggard for the technology giant. Last week, Alibaba Group announced it was investing an additional $3.3 billion in logistics unit Cainiao, which it co-founded with a number of other companies six years ago.
The biggest challenge for Alibaba remains the expansion of JD.com and Pinduoduo, both of which have better hold over the smaller cities and towns and more organized logistics networks. The three of them are locked in an intense battle, with each one of them bandying out billions of dollars in discounts to lure — and sustain — customers every year.
Like Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo also host similar campaigns each year. JD.com’s sales, which began November 1, had crossed $23.6 billion as of early today. This model has also been replicated by Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart in India, Qoo10 in Singapore, and 11th Street in South Korea.
Today’s milestone should help Alibaba win some more confidence from shareholders, when it begins selling shares worth $15 billion in Hong Kong later this month.
Singles’ Day event falls on November 11 every year and is also known as “double 11.” The event is dedicated to people who are not in a relationship.
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| To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (693) | 11/11/2019 2:48:40 PM | | From: Paul Senior | | | | I'm one of the "more than 1/2 billion people" buying today. Small stuff, not much.
I notice:
"taxes". Ali is collecting "taxes" now. Maybe it's the tariff?
coupons. I seem to have gotten some, but can't figure out how to use them.
mail. Still free. That will change next year with new international postal agreement. |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 11/20/2019 11:14:08 AM | | | | | | Alibaba Group raises $11.2 billion in Hong Kong listing
Dan Primack
Axios
November 20, 2019
Alibaba Group raised around $11.2 billion via a secondary share sale in Hong Kong.
Why it matters: It's the largest Hong Kong listing in nearly a decade and returns Alibaba to the exchange where it first listed in 2007 (later it went private and then IPO'd in New York).
Yes, but: Alibaba priced shares at nearly a 3% discount to where they closed trading Tuesday on the NYSE, preventing this from becoming one of the 10 largest global floats of all-time.
The bottom line: "The mega share sale comes as Hong Kong’s economy has been hurt by months of increasingly violent protests and growing anti-China sentiment. Alibaba’s return will please Chinese officials who’ve watched many of the country’s largest private firms flock overseas for capital." — Bloomberg
Go deeper:
axios.com |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 12/21/2019 11:23:29 AM | | | | | | Alibaba Patents Would Secure, Accelerate Its Consortium Blockchain
Dec 20, 2019 at 19:19 UTC
CoinDesk
Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group has won two U.S. patents designed to make its blockchain network safer and faster.
One patent aims to reduce the time to verify block data, while the other is designed to help participants set a validity period for a transaction in a blockchain network.
Both of the patents were approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) this week.
The approvals comes at a time with Ant Financial, the fintech arm of Alibaba, announced the launch of its Ant Open Blockchain Alliance, a consortium that aims to finance small and medium-sized businesses on its blockchain-based platform.
According to the patent filing, when data are added to a node the new technology will determine the update verification value of the node by using just the newly added data, not all the data in the block.
“The application will alleviate a problem in the existing technology, that much time is consumed because a verification value is calculated by using all data in a block,” the filing said.
The other patent will be used to set up a validity period for a transaction, meaning participants of a blockchain network can only process the transaction during a certain period of time via either a physical clock or a logical clock, according to Alibaba’s filing.
For example, the blockchain can be a consortium blockchain consisting of a third-party payment platform server, a domestic bank server, a foreign bank server and several user node devices serving as member devices.
The operator of the blockchain can set up a validity period and deploy online services such as cross-border payment and asset transfers, the filing said.
According to a November report from Chinese blockchain analytics firm Block Data on Chinese blockchain patents, Alibaba is one of the top three companies in developing blockchain patents, along with China Telecom and OneConnect, a subsidiary of one of China’s largest insurers, Ping An Insurance.
Alibaba applied for the most blockchain patents in 2018 with 90 blockchain-related technologies, followed by IBM and Bank of America.
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 2/13/2020 10:25:18 AM | | | | | | Alibaba marks cloud revenue milestone, pledges support for fight against coronavirus
Alibaba's cloud revenue exceeds 10 billion yuan for the first time in a single quarter, growing 62% to hit 10.72 billion yuan for its third quarter, and the Chinese e-commerce giant pledged to continue providing support to combat the coronavirus outbreak
By Eileen Yu for By The Way
ZDNet
February 13, 2020 -- 14:21 GMT (06:21 PST)
Alibaba Group has marked a new milestone for its cloud business, which revenue crossed 10 billion yuan for the first time in a single quarter to hit 10.72 billion yuan ($1.53 billion). Fuelled by demand in its public and hybrid cloud services, the Chinese tech giant's cloud business climbed 62% year-on-year for its third quarter, ended December 31, 2019.
Its robust cloud growth helped push the company's total revenue for the quarter to 161.46 billion yuan ($23.1 billion), up 38% from the previous year, while its net income grew 58% to 52.31 billion yuan ($7.49 billion).
Cloud, though, accounted for just 7% of Alibaba's overall revenue, the bulk of which came from its commerce units, encompassing its retail and wholesale e-commerce as well as logistics businesses.
While coy over how the Huawei-US debacle may impact other Chinese technology vendors, Alibaba Cloud executives play up their "in Asia, for Asia" focus and investment in the region as a key competitive advantage over its US competitors, including AWS, Microsoft, and Google.
Contributing 88% of its total revenue, the core commerce segment clocked a revenue growth of 38% for the quarter to hit 141.48 billion yuan ($20.25 billion). It added 18 million active consumers to its retail marketplaces over the previous quarter, to hit 711 million, while mobile active users reached 824 million, up 39 million from the previous quarter.
More than 60% of its new annual active consumers were from China's less developed areas, Alibaba said.
Its chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang attributed the growth in active consumers to its investment in improving user engagement, particularly through social commerce content. He added that its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, or Singles' Day, also saw another record sales last year, clocking 268.4 billion yuan ($38.4 billion) in gross merchandise volume.
According to Alibaba, transactions during last year's Singles' Day for the first time were hosted on the company's public cloud infrastructure, following the migration of the core systems that supported its e-commerce businesses to its public cloud. The platform helped process more than 544,000 orders per second during peak volume and 970 petabytes of data for the day's transactions.
The deadline for GDPR compliance is growing near, yet a surprising number of organizations are unprepared to comply with the stringent data protection rules. This resource kit includes a GDPR policy and compliance checklist, a data compliance officer...
The ongoing coronavirus epidemic, however, could present challenges in the short-term to the company's overall business development, Zhang said during his earnings call with analysts. The outbreak already was affecting China's economy and could spill over to the global economy, said Zhang in a report by South China Morning Post.
He added that Alibaba was monitoring the challenge and identifying opportunities for the company's business, noting that on its e-commerce business, employees delayed in returning to work following the extended Lunar New Year break were limiting merchants and logistics services providers from resuming full operations.
Alibaba earlier this week said it was rolling out some 20 measures, including waiving some fees across its online platforms to help affected merchants ride through the epidemic. These included its e-commerce marketplace, Tmall, which would waive service fees over the first half of this year as well as provide services for free to eligible merchants based in the virus epicentre, Hubei.
Zhang said: "In response to the coronavirus, we mobilised Alibaba ecosystem of commerce and technology to fully support the fight against the outbreak, ensure supply of daily necessities for our communities, and introduced practical relief measures for our merchants. We will support our merchants to overcome this challenging time together."
 (Source: Alibaba)
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