Latest news with #Jack Ma
South China Morning Post
17 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Alibaba, Ant combine forces to take on Meituan in China's instant commerce market
Alibaba Group Holding and its fintech affiliate Ant Group, both co-founded by Jack Ma, have joined forces to create an army of delivery service workers to defeat Meituan in the instant commerce market. A total of 22 businesses operated by Alibaba and Ant, including domestic online marketplaces Taobao and Tmall, Ant's Alipay payment service and Alibaba Cloud, have pledged to improve the conditions of millions of delivery riders. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. Alibaba's move to pool resources from different units – which also include food delivery service fresh food store Freshippo and online travel booking site Fliggy – is being promoted as a public welfare campaign, but it marks the first time since 2020 that all of the group's key brands are on the same page. Alibaba has walked back from an earlier plan to spin off its sprawling business empire into independent entities. Late last year, the company merged its domestic and overseas e-commerce operations into one unit under newly appointed CEO Jiang Fan. This month, Alibaba rolled out a new membership programme spanning a range of services, from online marketplaces and food delivery to travel bookings. According to a statement from Taobao on Monday, Alibaba's delivery riders would be equipped with a new orange uniform in the style of a racing suit. The company pledged to provide better welfare coverage for its riders and set up special funds to support the education and healthcare needs of riders and their family members.
South China Morning Post
30-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Alibaba's finance chief voices confidence in China's AI boom and consumer market
Alibaba Group Holding 's chief financial officer Toby Xu Hong reiterated the company's confidence in China's growing artificial intelligence sector and the consumer market's resilience in an interview with state news agency Xinhua, as he highlighted the tech giant's significant investments in AI research, infrastructure, and on-demand delivery. Xu said Alibaba had earmarked 380 billion yuan (US$52 billion) for AI infrastructure, and 50 billion yuan for subsidies to merchants and consumers to support the country's tech and internet services development, according to the report on Wednesday. 'Such large investments are based on in-depth analyses, with our continual confidence in the outlook of the Chinese market and the role of private enterprises in the nation's development being the most important factors,' said Xu, who was appointed Alibaba's finance chief in 2022 after joining the company in 2018. Alibaba owns the Post. Xu noted that a business symposium hosted by President Xi Jinping in February, which included entrepreneurs like Alibaba founder Jack Ma, greatly encouraged the private sector, prompting the company to make a series of strategic commitments. An Alibaba booth during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Monday. Photo: EPA That same month, Alibaba announced plans to invest at least 380 billion yuan over the next three years in AI, cloud computing and related infrastructure – an amount exceeding its total spending in those areas over the past decade.
