Defining Alibaba
Alibaba is China’s — and by some measures, the world’s —biggest online commerce company. Its three main sites — Taobao, Tmall and Alibaba.com — have hundreds of millions of users, and host millions of merchants and businesses. Alibaba handles more business than any other e-commerce company.
E-COMMERCE
Alibaba is the most popular destination for online shopping, in the world's fastest growing e-commerce market. Transactions on its online sites totaled $248 billion last year, more than those of eBay and Amazon.com combined.
80%
of China's online shopping market is dominated by Alibaba.
MARKET CAPITALIZATION
Alibaba became one of the most valuable tech companies in the world after raising $25 billion from its U.S. IPO. It is also one of the most valuable Chinese public companies, ranking among some of the country’s state-owned enterprises.
4
In billions
Because Alibaba runs marketplaces and has a huge customer base, the amount of business that flows over its sites dwarfs that of other e-commerce companies…
The Man Behind Alibaba
Alibaba founder Jack Ma is the company’s spiritual leader. When Alibaba needs a new innovation, it goes back to his old apartment for inspiration. Mr. Ma stepped down as CEO, but Alibaba’s current corporate structure will let Mr. Ma and other top brass nominate more than half of Alibaba's board members. Alibaba chose to list in the U.S. because the Hong Kong exchange refused to accept the structure.
