The magical 20-year journey to become the world’s largest e-commerce empire under Alibaba under Jack Ma

Since its inception in 1999, Alibaba has grown from a traditional e-commerce company into a large corporation that owns businesses from logistics, food delivery to cloud computing. Alibaba is currently worth more than $ 460 billion.

Here are some of the most important moments in corporate history:

April 1999: The journey begins

Jack Ma founded and operates Alibaba at his apartment.

Alibaba was founded by a group of 18 people led by Jack Ma. They work at Ma’s apartment in Hangzhou city. Up to now, the company’s headquarter is still located here.

The first website they created was Alibaba.com, an English-language wholesale market. That same year, Alibaba launched a domestic wholesale market.

January 2000: SoftBank invested

Alibaba received $ 20 million from a group of investors led by SoftBank.

Jack Ma once said: “Me and CEO of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son did not talk about revenue or even business model. We only talked about a common vision and we both made quick decisions. “. That investment helped Alibaba expand and grow.

May 2003: Taobao was born

Taobao is an online shopping platform in China operated by Alibaba, where third-party sellers can sell their products. In fiscal 2015, Taobao’s total cargo volume reached US $ 223.9 billion. That figure has increased to $ 438 billion in fiscal 2019. Revenue from Taobao is an important part of Alibaba’s core commercial business.

December 2004: Alipay launch

Alipay is China’s leading payment platform.

Alipay is one of China’s two largest payment platforms, alongside Tencent-owned rival WeChatPay. The payment method of Alipay is via barcode and shoppers can scan the code to make payment at the store easily. In addition, Alipay can also be used at online stores.

Despite this, Alipay appears to be a controversial asset throughout Alibaba’s history, prompting the company and founder Jack Ma to clash with a number of key shareholders from Yahoo and SoftBank.

August 2005: Yahoo became the largest shareholder

Yahoo has poured $ 1 billion into Alibaba to own a 40% stake and become the company’s largest shareholder. Under the deal, Alibaba took control of Yahoo’s business in China.

Terry Semel, Yahoo’s then CEO, said: “Together, we will create one of China’s largest Internet companies and the combination of assets will turn us into the only company in the position. leader in all the key areas driving the booming Internet growth in China such as search, commerce and media. ”

November 2007: IPO in Hong Kong

Prior to the US IPO in 2014, Alibaba had an IPO in Hong Kong in 2007. This helped Alibaba earn 1.6 billion USD.

April 2008: The birth of Tmall

Alibaba launched a product called Taobao Mall and later became Tmall. Along with Taobao, Tmall is currently one of Alibaba’s most important e-commerce assets in terms of revenue.

Tmall is positioned as a place where foreign brands can open stores online and sell to Chinese consumers. Many luxury fashion brands, electronics manufacturers and even Starbucks are on Tmall.

September 2009: Launch of cloud business

Alibaba launched its cloud-based business in 2009 and is now one of the largest companies in China. Cloud computing is Alibaba’s second-largest revenue source and the fastest growing business. Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba, said cloud computing will be the company’s main business area in the future and this is their long-term strategy.

November 2009: Single day event

The single day initiated by Alibaba has become the largest shopping event of the year in China.

Singles Day is China’s largest shopping event of the year. This is an initiative of CEO Zhang. Accordingly, retailers will sharply reduce prices on 11/11, turning Single Day into a multi-billion dollar festival.

The total value of goods sold through Alibaba’s platforms reached US $ 7.8 million during the Single Day event in 2009. Last year, that number rose to a record of US $ 30.8 billion.

May 2011: Controversy about Alipay

Alibaba sold Alipay control to a group controlled by Jack Ma. At the time, the company said it was due to new rules issued by the People’s Bank of China. Rules for third party online payments require them to have a specific license.

However, Yahoo, the largest shareholder of Alibaba at the time, said the sale of Alipay happened without their knowledge. On the other hand, the e-commerce giant denied this.

In the end, Yahoo, SoftBank and Alibaba reached an agreement: Alibaba will be paid at least $ 2 billion but not more than $ 6 billion if Alipay IPO and Alipay are required to pay licensing fees and continue to be used to serve. Taobao.

June 2012: Cancel listing in Hong Kong

Just five years after its launch, Alibaba was delisted from the Hong Kong stock market. The company paid $ 2.45 billion to buy 27% of Alibaba.com held by the public.

September 2012: Acquired shares held by Yahoo

Alibaba has acquired nearly half of the shares that Yahoo holds in the e-commerce group. Ma’s company paid Yahoo $ 6.3 billion in cash and $ 800 million in preferred stock at Alibaba.

This is a huge profit for Yahoo after an initial $ 1 billion investment in 2005.

September 2014: IPO in New York

Alibaba was listed on the New York Stock Exchange during the largest IPO in history. This giant has raised about 25 billion USD. Currently, Alibaba is one of Asia’s largest technology companies in terms of pricing.

October 2014: Establishing Ant Financial

After Alipay’s controversial event, Ant Financial was created to handle not only payments but also many other financial services. This signaled Alibaba’s intention to push into fintech.

Ant Financial is currently China’s largest fintech company, worth around $ 150 billion.

August 2015: Agreement worth 4.6 billion USD

Alibaba has invested $ 4.6 billion in electronics retailer Suning physical store. Previously, the company invested in Intime department store chain.

Alibaba’s goal is to combine online business with physical stores and build a large ecosystem including e-commerce, payment, food delivery and a number of other services.

April 2016: Stepping up in the international market

Since its inception, Alibaba has mainly focused on the domestic market: Helping domestic and foreign brands sell to Chinese consumers.

However, in April 2016, Alibaba took a controlling stake in Lazada, a Singapore-based e-commerce company, serving several markets in Southeast Asia. That marks Alibaba’s first international push in e-commerce.

February 2018: Alibaba bought Ant’s stake

Alibaba has bought a 33% stake in Ant Financial because of a clause in the contract between the two companies since 2014 when Ant was created.

Some sources say AntFinancial is preparing to IPO but the company has not yet made any official announcement.

September 2019: Jack Ma resigns as chairman

In September 2018, Alibaba said Jack Ma would resign as chairman of the board a year later, on September 10, 2019, and the company’s current CEO, Daniel Zhang, will take over this position. Ma’s intention is to stay on the Alibaba board until the annual shareholders meeting in 2020.