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11/22/2024 11:49:54 am

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Alibaba Seeks To Exceed Wal-Mart

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(Photo : Alibaba Logo)

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba hopes to overtake Wal-Mart of the United States and become the world's biggest e-commerce retail company in two years, Alibaba chairman Jack Ma told reporters on Saturday.

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Ma, who signed a strategic cooperative agreement with China Telecom in Beijing, said that while Wal-Mart created the business-to-consumer retail model in the last century, Alibaba is creating the consumer-to-business retail model in this century.

Ma made the pronouncement after saying that sales of Alibaba Group Holding's e-commerce business are expected to surpass the sales of the entire e-commerce market in the United States by the end of this year.

$163 Billion Total Transactions In 2012

Alibaba's e-commerce, which includes Alibaba.com, Taobao Marketplace, and Taobao Mall recorded CNY1 trillion, or $163 billion in total transactions in 2012. Alibaba was established in 1999 as a business-to-business website. It has since then expanded into logistics, finance, cloud computing, and recently, the retail industry.

The chairman of Alibaba signed an agreement with China Telecom, the biggest fixed-line network operator in China, in areas including basic telecom services, mobile internet, cloud computing, among others.

While Alibaba gets ready for one of the biggest Internet initial public offerings, the company is also looking into how to profit in the mobile-Internet market.  Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao jointly manage more dollar dealings than any e-commerce platform even counting US-based eBay Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

Although over 90% of those deals are generated from personal computers, the market is becoming more dependent on mobile devices for online activities, and Alibaba seeks to stay on top of China's e-commerce market.

Ma Denies Internet Bank Plan

It was also reported that Alibaba was planning to establish the first-ever Internet bank in China to be operated by Alibaba Finance. Ma, however, denied the reports saying the company does not have plans to venture in the banking industry.

But sources said the bank will have a registered capital of CNY1 billion ($163.5 million) and will provide services such as deposits, transfers, and loans, and will be the first of its kind in China.

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