Alibaba IPO Could Be Largest Tech Deal in U.S. History
Alibaba is a group of several Chinese e-commerce businesses whose history dates back to 1999. Main co-founder Jack Ma was a former English teacher and started the firm in his modest apartment. But he saw that the Internet could be a great way to make it easier for Chinese companies to sell into other countries.
Ma has stuck to his vision, but he has also leveraged the Alibaba.com site into other segments, such as Taobao Marketplace (China’s largest online shopping destination), Tmall (China’s largest third-party platform for brands and retailers) and Juhuasuan (China’s most popular group buying marketplace by its monthly active users).
Sheer scale should gin up interest in the Alibaba IPO. Last year, those aforementioned marketplaces generated volumes of about $248 billion from 231 million active buyers and 8 million active sellers. That volume doesn’t just sound big — it is big. In fact, it’s bigger than the volume of Amazon.com (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) combined!
To power all this, the company also has a massive logistics support system operated by Zhejiang Cainiao Supply Chain Management Co. (Alibaba owns 48% of the company). As a testament to its strength, Alibaba’s network was able to handle 156 million packages for delivery during the Singles Day holiday promotion in 2013. Meanwhile, average daily volume is about 13.7 million packages.
Alibaba is a group of several Chinese e-commerce businesses whose history dates back to 1999. Main co-founder Jack Ma was a former English teacher and started the firm in his modest apartment. But he saw that the Internet could be a great way to make it easier for Chinese companies to sell into other countries.
Ma has stuck to his vision, but he has also leveraged the Alibaba.com site into other segments, such as Taobao Marketplace (China’s largest online shopping destination), Tmall (China’s largest third-party platform for brands and retailers) and Juhuasuan (China’s most popular group buying marketplace by its monthly active users).
Sheer scale should gin up interest in the Alibaba IPO. Last year, those aforementioned marketplaces generated volumes of about $248 billion from 231 million active buyers and 8 million active sellers. That volume doesn’t just sound big — it is big. In fact, it’s bigger than the volume of Amazon.com (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) combined!
To power all this, the company also has a massive logistics support system operated by Zhejiang Cainiao Supply Chain Management Co. (Alibaba owns 48% of the company). As a testament to its strength, Alibaba’s network was able to handle 156 million packages for delivery during the Singles Day holiday promotion in 2013. Meanwhile, average daily volume is about 13.7 million packages.