Alibaba overhauls e-commerce businesses

SHANGHAI (Reuters): Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., said it will reorganise its international and domestic e-commerce businesses and replace its CFO – changes that come as the tech giant grapples with an onslaught of competition, a slowing economy and a regulatory crackdown.

It will form two new units – international digital commerce and China digital commerce – which it said was part of efforts to become more agile and accelerate growth.

The international digital commerce unit will include ‘AliExpress’, which sells to retail buyers, particularly in Europe and South America, its Southeast Asian e-commerce business ‘Lazada’, and Alibaba.com, which is more focused on selling to overseas business customers.

It will be headed by Jiang Fan, who had been in charge of its main Chinese retail marketplaces, and the change is seen in line with Alibaba’s aim to make ‘globalisation’ a key focus area in addition to cloud computing and domestic consumer spending.

Globalisation “helps Alibaba to get new traffic volume externally (and) seek new growth potential while China has been increasing supervision,” said Hong Kong-based ‘Guotai Junan’ Analyst Danny Law.

The China digital commerce unit will include Alibaba’s two main marketplaces, ‘Tmall’ for established brands, and ‘Taobao’, which welcomes all kinds of merchants. It will be led by Trudy Dai, who has previously overseen a number of Alibaba platforms.

The new structure for domestic e-commerce puts Dai in charge of all China retail marketplaces, including ‘Taocaicai’ - its community e-commerce service, ‘Taobao Deals’ as well as ‘Lingshoutong’, a retail management platform for mom-and-pop stores, said 86research.com Analyst Xiaoyan Wang.

“This could possibly unlock more synergies via cross-selling and integration of supply chain,” she said.

Alibaba also announced that Deputy Chief Financial Officer Toby Xu will succeed Maggie Wu as CFO from April, describing his appointment as part of the company’s leadership succession plan. Xu joined Alibaba from PWC three years ago.