Alibaba expands in Australia and New Zealand

After fighting against counterfeit products, Chinese internet giant Alibaba seems to focus on its worldwide expansion plans again, which are currently zeroing in on Australia and New Zealand. Apart from winning more customers and users in this region for its e-commerce platforms Tmall Global and g.taobao.com, Alibaba is also planning to open a new office in Melbourne later this year to serve the needs of online merchants in the two countries, according to the South China Morning Post.

"Australia and New Zealand are a big part of our globalisation strategy.“

"There is still huge potential for growth, due primarily to Chinese consumers' growing demand for quality products coupled with the trusted reputations of both countries," commented an Alibaba representative. "The new office and the expanded team will be well-positioned to support Australian and New Zealand merchants already on our platforms, as well as new merchants looking to expand into China," added Maggie Zhou, managing director of Alibaba Australia.

Alibaba envisions 2 billion consumers globally

Currently, about 1,300 Australian and New Zealand brands are operating on Tmall and Tmall Global, selling food and beverage products, cosmetics and products for mothers and infants to consumers in China. On the other end, about half a million Australian consumers use Alibaba's offer. "They are actually not all Chinese speaking consumers," stated Alibaba president Michael Evans who is in charge of overseeing the international expansion.

This relies, as announced in January, on a "three-pronged strategy", which targets first-tier cities in China and promoting e-commerce among rural Chinese and globally through international e-commerce websites. Its ambitious goal is to bring their current consumer base of 423 million to 2 billion globally.

In regards to Australia and New Zealand, apart from expanding its e-commerce activities, Alibaba has other priorities as well: "Secondly, we are going to build our payments business [Alipay], for people who live here and for people who visit here. Number three, we are going to build a cloud business and that is designed to service the smaller companies. And the final piece, which might turn out to be the most important piece ... is the logistics infrastructure," revealed Evans.

"Australia and New Zealand are a big part of our globalisation strategy. In markets that are very important to us, we want a good group of people working for us," said Evans according to The Australian Financial Review on Tuesday.

In a parallel development, the internet giant is thought to be planning a foray into the North American market. Some speculate that Alibaba may simply buy Yahoo, which already holds a 15 percent stake in Alibaba, but that remains to be seen.

Image: courtesy of Alibaba