Alibaba.com "Global Trade starts here..." (Chinese: ????; pinyin: a li ba ba) is a Hangzhou-based e-commerce/e-auction company, founded in 1999 by Ma Yun (Jack Ma). It operates five e-commerce sub-companies: Alibaba.com, Alisoft, Yahoo! China, Taobao, and Alipay.
Their English-language website alibaba.com specializes in business-to-business trades, especially for international buyers trying to get into contact with Chinese sellers.[uncjigga: !!!! :thumbsup:] The Chinese-language chinese.alibaba.com focuses on business-to-business trades within China while
www.taobao.com is a consumer-to-consumer trade site for Chinese customers.
On August 11, 2005, Yahoo! announced that it would purchase a 40% stake in the company for US$1bn plus Yahoo!'s Chinese assets (worth about US $700M). Alibaba will take charge of Yahoo! China, and Alibaba's founder Jack Ma will remain.
As of January 2007, the Alibaba Group is made up of 5 companies:
1) Alibaba.com: English language global trade website serving small and medium-sized enterprises.
2) Taobao.com: The main competitor to eBay in China for on-line auctions. Currently Taobao has over 65% of the auction market.
3) Yahoo! China: Chinese search portal.
4) Alipay: main competitor to PayPal for on-line payments in China.
5) Alisoft: introduced Jan 2007, Alisoft provides web services to the Chinese SME marketplace.
On July 31st, 2007, Alibaba announced plans for an IPO in Hong Kong in which they hope to raise HK$7.8Billion (US$1Billion).[1]
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