Alibaba, the world’s largest online B2B marketplace for global and domestic China trade with over 20 million registered members in more than 200 countries and territories, the famous company founded by Jack Ma 7 years ago expects total revenue to hit US$1.25 billion by 2009. The 1999’s 18-man-startup already reached US$100 million in the first half of last year and lately hired an experienced Exec VP Mr David Wei (former President of B&Q china) to keep its course straight to the stars.
Mr Wei said the company planned to broaden its services, giving it more revenue streams in two to three years. Alibaba’s only paid services now are subscription for its online catalogue Gold Supplier and online identity certificate provider Trustpass.”There will be new services for payment, logistics as well as services to support small companies’ internal operations, such as information technology, human resource management and legal advice,” Mr Wei said.
There are no clear signs of bridge-building with the B2B ASP/SAAS eSourcing and eProcurement industry currenlty led by Ariba but I can see the gap closing up: services for payment, to support operations (sourcing, RFx, auctions…?), logistic…
With 3500 employees to date, Alibaba is not -yet- after fortune 500 enterprises and keeps on targeting the bottomless worldwide-market of exporting SMEs. A SME market which makes Ariba & consort’s head spin.
Shall we start thinking about wedding?