TechPression

Tag: Alibaba

  • Alibaba enters African market with Morocco as strategic launchpad for e-commerce expansion

    Alibaba enters African market with Morocco as strategic launchpad for e-commerce expansion

    Alibaba announced its entry into the African market on December 20, launching operations in Morocco, marking a major milestone for the Chinese e-commerce giant. 

    This initiative aims to empower local businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to access international markets, particularly in North America.

    Read also: Konga to launch AI-powered radio station

    Morocco, a strategic choice for African market

    Giancarlo Pastano, Alibaba’s Director for Europe, emphasised Morocco’s strategic advantages during a meeting with local business leaders in Casablanca. 

    He stated, “Morocco’s diverse industries, high-quality products, and strategic location make it an ideal partner for this expansion.” 

    Alibaba chose the country partly due to its advanced infrastructure, notably the Tanger Med Port, one of the largest in the Mediterranean.

    Alibaba has partnered with local firm Clementia to facilitate this expansion. Reda Chraibi, CEO of Clementia, highlighted the partnership’s benefits: “This partnership enables Moroccan businesses to create digital storefronts on Alibaba’s platform, streamlining their access to international buyers.” 

    Fewer than 30 Moroccan companies are active on Alibaba’s platform; however, this number is expected to rise with the launch of localised services.

    Read also: Temu becomes most downloaded app days after entering Nigerian market

    Supporting local businesses

    The Moroccan government has actively pursued strategies to diversify its export markets beyond the European Union. 

    Alibaba’s entry aligns with these efforts, offering local businesses a new avenue to reach untapped global markets. The company plans to create a dedicated page for Moroccan products on its platform, contingent on collaboration with Moroccan export promotion agencies.

    This launch represents a pivotal opportunity for Moroccan businesses to integrate into global supply chains. It reflects Alibaba’s commitment to fostering global trade connections and enhancing the visibility of high-quality Moroccan goods on the world stage. 

    As Pastano noted, “The potential for Moroccan businesses to expand their export footprints is immense.”

  • Alibaba sells $871 million American depositary shares

    Alibaba sells $871 million American depositary shares

    The Chinese businessman Jack Ma’s family trust will sell 10 million American Depositary Shares, which has put Alibaba Group Holdings (9988. HK) in the spotlight. 

    Approximately $871 million is how much the shares are worth. These companies, JSP Investment and JC Properties, are planning to sell company shares on November 21.

    The corporation has struggled after a massive C-suite restructuring. Earlier this year, the company was thought to be splitting into six sections. These units wanted cash and public listings, according to Reuters—private business regulation reduced in China. Alibaba has canceled cloud spinoffs. The company has also removed its supermarket listing.

    Read also: Alibaba Cloud unveils Qwen-VL and Qwen-VL-Chat for AI 

    What the Market Did

    Although Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, stepped down as CEO in 2019, the company still faces problems. Chairman Joe Tsai has said that the company will start paying bonuses every year. This was meant to make investors happy. 

    But, to put it mildly, the reaction has been adverse. Regulatory documents made public the sale of shares, which sent shockwaves through the market. Shares listed in the U.S. fell more than 3%, which took $20 billion off of Alibaba’s market value. In Friday’s trade in Hong Kong, the value of shares has continued to fall.

    Structure of Alibaba’s Ownership

    Alibaba still does not have a majority shareholder. According to Alibaba’s papers from July, SoftBank was the only stakeholder with more than 5% beneficial ownership in the company. Still, Softbank has been getting rid of most of its shares. While competitors spend billions of dollars on new areas like AI, Alibaba doesn’t know what it’s doing.

    At this significant time, Ma’s family trust selling 10 million shares doesn’t look good. Eddie Wu is in charge of Alibaba and helped create it. It will be hard for him to lead the company through a rough patch. Alibaba’s quarterly results, which will be out soon, will be closely watched as the company gets through this rough patch.

  • Eddie Yongming Wu replaces Daniel Zhang as Alibaba’s CEO

    Eddie Yongming Wu replaces Daniel Zhang as Alibaba’s CEO

    Daniel Zhang, the CEO and chairman of Alibaba, intends to retire this year, and an insider will take his place. This is a big change in the company’s leadership.

    On Sept. 10, Eddie Yongming Wu will become CEO, and Joe Tsai will become chairman.

    The two employees have been working for Alibaba for a long time and are close friends of Alibaba’s billionaire founder, Jack Ma.

    But who exactly are they, and what do their choices say about Alibaba’s future?

    Read also: Chinese tech giant, Alibaba announces management reshuffle

    Eddie Wu, the new CEO

    Eddie Wu is one of the people who started Alibaba. He started working there in 1999 as a technology head. He has a lot of experience with the company’s main e-commerce business, making money, and technology, which makes him a good choice to run the whole group.

    After Alibaba chose to split into six parts, he became the chairman of the Taobao and Tmall Groups. At the time, these were China’s two biggest e-commerce sites.

    Wu has also been the chief technology officer of important companies like Taobao and Alipay, which is a mobile payment service run by Ant Group, which is a subsidiary of Alibaba. He was in charge of Alibaba’s base for making money on Taobao and Tmall. He also led the push for the Taobao mobile app, which brought the company into the smartphone age.

    “It shouldn’t be a big surprise that Eddie Wu was named CEO. He helped start Alibaba and was a big part of making Taobao and Alipay profitable, according to Jacob Cooke, CEO of WPIC, an e-commerce tech and marketing company that helps foreign brands sell in China.

    “His promotion to CEO of the group is a natural step, and it shows how important e-commerce will always be in the company’s plans,” Cooke said.

    Joe Tsai, the new chairman

    Joe Tsai is another one of the people who started Alibaba. He was the company’s chief financial officer until 2013 and is now the executive vice chairman. He is also the head of Alibaba’s logistics unit, Cainiao, and a member of the Taobao and Tmall sections.

    Aside from his work with Alibaba, Tsai is also a part-owner of the U.S. basketball team, the Brooklyn Nets. He is often thought of as a more international-focused leader.

    “The appointment of the internationally focused Tsai as chairman fits perfectly with the new outward-looking strategy that Alibaba has recently adopted, with big investments in Lazada and the recently announced plans to open a local version of Tmall in Europe,” said Cooke.

    Alibaba owns the e-commerce company Lazada, which is based in Singapore and has been a key part of its growth in Southeast Asia. Separately, Alibaba President Michael Evans said last week that the company would start local versions of its Tmall e-commerce service in Europe.

    Alibaba begins Netpreneur Training Program for Africans

    Changes’ timing

    Alibaba has had a rough two and a half years. In November 2020, officials stopped Ant Group’s huge initial public offering (IPO) because it didn’t meet their requirements.

    In areas like data security and competition, the Chinese government tightened rules on its own technology industry. In April 2021, regulators hit Alibaba with a huge antitrust fine of 18.23 billion yuan ($2.5 billion).

    The slowing growth of the company is due to a slowing Chinese economy and more competition from companies like JD.com and Pinduoduo. Its key cloud business, where CEO Zhang will spend all of his time after he leaves, saw sales go down in the March quarter.

    Tsai and Wu will try to get the company to grow again, even though the economy as a whole is still not doing well.

    “I don’t think the reorganisation says much about Alibaba’s business focus, and I don’t think it will have a big effect on the company’s performance,” Xin Sun, a senior lecturer in Chinese and East Asian business at King’s College London, told CNBC via email.

    “After all, the most important reasons for the company’s success are structural, like the fact that its ecosystem is breaking up, the regulatory environment is getting more complicated, and competitors are very strong. Nothing has changed about these.”

  • AI: Alibaba launches ChatGPT rival

    AI: Alibaba launches ChatGPT rival

    Alibaba, a Chinese tech company, has said it wants to release a product similar to ChatGPT called Tongyi Qianwen. This product will use artificial intelligence (AI) and will be similar to ChatGPT.

    Its cloud computing division says that it will add the chatbot to all of Alibaba’s businesses in the “near future,” but it didn’t say when.

    Technology firms from all around the world have recently revealed their own “generative AI chatbots” in recent months.

    Alibaba stated earlier this year that it was developing a ChatGPT firm.

    Tongyi Qianwen means “asking a thousand questions to find an answer,” but Alibaba hasn’t given an English translation of the name.

    “We are at a technological turning point because of generative AI and cloud computing,” Alibaba’s chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang said when Tongyi Qianwen was released.

    Tongyi Qianwen, which can operate in both Chinese and English, will initially be added to DingTalk, Alibaba’s office messaging app.

    The company stated that it would carry out a variety of activities, including recording meeting interactions into notes, composing emails, and creating business proposals.

    Even though this is a new project for Alibaba, its cloud unit plans to let clients use the AI model Tongyi Qianwen to build their own language models. Soon, users will be able to sign up.

    Read also: ChatGPT Users To Pay $42 Subscription Fee

    Alibaba’s rejection of AI regulation

    People all around the world are aware that AI tools frequently resolve problems and considerably simplify our work, but many of them are pessimistic about the future and want to regulate the field of generative AI technology.

    In the past few years, there have been a lot of complaints about the social consequences, possible abuses, cyberattacks, and dangers in the social dynamics of the workplace that could lead to the loss of intellectual property.

    The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has reportedly prepared rules to regulate the generative AI sector to reduce the risks associated with cutting-edge technology. AI content generation, especially on sensitive issues, must comply with China’s data security and personal information protection rules.

    Companies must submit security assessments to regulators before launching products. This may slow growth, but it would also prevent foreign firms from offering AI services in the country, benefiting local firms.

    Countries have delayed, limited, or stopped AI trends before. Italy briefly banned ChatGPT last month. North Korea restricts internet use, including the AI chatbot. This group includes Iran, Syria, and Cuba.

    Montpellier banned ChatGPT for city employees as a precaution. The UK’s independent data regulator wants to “encourage” AI but “challenge” corporations that violate data protection laws.

    A long list of well-known technologists, businesspeople, and researchers, including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, have also asked AI labs to stop working on active AI systems right away to avoid risks.

    ChatGPT Will Eliminate Jobs, OpenAI CEO Warns

    About Alibaba and ChatGPT

    E-commerce, retail, the Internet, and technology are Alibaba’s specialities. The company, formed in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, on June 28, 1999, provides C2C, B2C, and B2B web portals, electronic payment systems, retail search engines, and cloud computing. It runs businesses internationally.

    Alibaba is one of the world’s largest retail and e-commerce companies. It was ranked as the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company in 2020.

    It is also one of the largest venture capital firms and investment companies in the world. Through its fintech arm, Ant Group, it is the second largest financial services group after Visa.

    The company runs the largest global B2B, C2C, and B2C markets. Its sales have increased by three percentage points per year since entering the media business. It broke Singles’ Day in 2018.

    OpenAI announced ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, in November 2022. It uses supervised and reinforcement learning to fine-tune OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 families of large language models (LLMs).

    ChatGPT was developed and tested on November 30, 2022. Its thorough and well-reasoned solutions in many fields gained recognition. Nonetheless, its uneven factual use is a major issue. OpenAI was valued at $29 billion in 2023 after ChatGPT.

    ChatGPT’s first version was based on GPT-3.5. On March 14, 2023, a version based on GPT-4, the newest OpenAI model, came out and is only available to paid subscribers for a limited time.

  • Alibaba begins Netpreneur Training Program for Africans

    Alibaba begins Netpreneur Training Program for Africans

    On 11th October 2022, Alibaba signed on well over 360 African entrepreneurs for its Netpreneur Training program at a virtual opening ceremony. The launch of the second class of Netpreneur comes after the success of the inaugural class, which graduated 70 African participants last October.

    The four weeks masterclass will run from October 11 to November 10, 2022, and the training programme is free of charge.

    Being an initiative of Alibaba Global Initiatives (AGI), a professional training arm of Alibaba Group, Netpreneur has the support of Africa’s Business Heroes prize competition, a philanthropic initiative that aims to support and inspire the next generation of African entrepreneurs

    Read also: BCX and Alibaba Cloud Distribution Agreement Deal for South Africa

    Alibaba Netpreneur Training Program

    The Alibaba Netpreneur Training Online Course Africa program offers digital entrepreneurs and business owners an opportunity to learn and explore how to harness digital technology to grow their businesses and the local economy.

    Successful applicants from across the African continent will embark on a series of online classes where they will delve into approaches to harnessing technology to grow their businesses within the local economy. All participants are founders of their respective start-ups from industries such as agriculture, education, information & communication technology (ICT), and trading.

    Netpreneur Training program is conducted online in English by certified Alibaba trainers and business leaders who have had experience leading their digital businesses to success. Its participants stand to gain knowledge on:

    ● The development of the digital economy in China and the most cutting-edge trends and practices in use within the growing digital economy in China.

    ● Mindset and knowledge from traditional businesses from a wide range of industries that recently went through digital transformation in China.

    ● Business frameworks and strategy, strengthening their organization’s capacity to drive innovation and achieve greater results.

    ● Key insights into the evolution of Alibaba’s ecosystem, including learnings, best practices and fundamentals of the new technology.

    Upon completion of the program, participants will receive an e-certificate and will be eligible to join the AGI entrepreneur community. The community comprises a diverse mix of passionate and successful like-minded entrepreneurs and provides unmatched opportunities to network, collaborate and learn.

    Those who perform exceeding well have the opportunity to participate in a one-week offline immersion program at Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China, subject to fulfilling the online course criteria.

    Speaking in a press release, Dan Liu, Senior Advisor at Alibaba Global Initiatives, says;

    “We are delighted to be able to continue advancing our vision of sharing the positive impact of the digital economy with entrepreneurs and enrol our second cohort of African participants.” With companies taking to online channels to keep their businesses afloat during the pandemic, digitalization is no longer a foreign concept to consumers and entrepreneurs. We hope this edition of our Alibaba Netpreneur Training will help entrepreneurs in Africa develop long-term, savvy digital strategies that will open up more opportunities for them.”

    The Alibaba Netpreneur Training Program was first introduced in 2019 and has successfully trained close to 1,500 entrepreneurs in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia since its inception.

    The program application closed on September 18, 2022. For details on the next editions of the Alibaba Netpreneur Training Program, contact globalinitiatives@alibaba-inc.com.

    What to know about Alibaba Global Initiatives

    Alibaba Global Initiatives (AGI) inspires and supports entrepreneurs, youth, and women globally by sharing the positive impact of the digital economy in promoting inclusive development. Its programs encourage entrepreneurs to share and use digital economy tools to create a positive social impact and collaborate with each other and the public sector to make a larger impact. To date, there are close to 1,900 digital entrepreneurs and business leaders from more than 60 countries and regions; they were trained directly by AGI, who have subsequently taught other members of their communities.

    Response Architects Partners with Alibaba to launch Livestream Shopping across Africa

    About Africa’s Business Heroes

    The Africa Business Heroes Prize Competition is a charitable event put on by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Philanthropy.

    The goal of the initiative is to help and inspire the next generation of African entrepreneurs in all fields to build a more sustainable and inclusive economy for the future of the continent.

    For 10 years, ABH will honour 100 African entrepreneurs’  work and help them grow by giving them grants, training programs, and other support.

    Each year, the ABH Prize Competition and Show feature10 finalists as they pitch their business to win a share of US$1.5 million in grant money. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group and the Jack Ma Foundation, created the prize after he made his first trip to Africa in 2017 and was inspired by the energy and entrepreneurial potential of the young people he met there.

    About Alibaba Group

    Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company aims to build the future infrastructure of commerce. It envisions that its customers will meet and live at Alibaba and that it will be a good company that lasts at least 102 years.