Alibaba held its annual Investor Day on December 17. Two major announcements on the program. The first: the Chinese e-commerce giant hears quintuple revenues from sales in Southeast Asia. The second : achieve carbon neutrality for its activities by 2030.
Alibaba to conquer Southeast Asia
Daniel Zheng, CEO of Alibaba, strongly believes in Southeast Asia to develop his company’s e-commerce activities. ” There is enormous potential both in the overall size of the market and in our penetration, ”he enthused from the podium..
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Alibaba established itself in the region by taking a majority stake in the Singaporean e-commerce company Lazada in 2016. Since then, its Chinese parent company has invested two billion dollars to ensure its development.
From September 2020 to September 2021, Lazada’s gross merchandise volume reached $ 21 billion, and it has a community of 159 million monthly active users. Alibaba hopes to reach $ 100 billion in sales revenue and reach 300 million consumers within an undisclosed timeframe.
Alibaba CEO Daniel Zheng explained that in Southeast Asia, “ e-commerce penetration is only 11%, and annual Lazada consumers reached only 34% of regional internet users “.
Beyond this tempting commercial potential, Alibaba is mainly pursuing its quest for a market outside the borders of the Middle Empire. In China, competition, like Pinduoduo, is gradually settling and above all Alibaba had to pay 2.3 billion euros in fines for abuse of a dominant position. The need for air can be understood.
Objective, decarbonize
In parallel with its ambitions in Southeast Asia, Alibaba also affirmed want to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. The e-commerce giant, not necessarily the least polluting activity in the world, has made several parallel commitments.
Among them: halving the CO2 emissions of its supply chain and its commercial ecosystem, using more renewable energy and energy saving and efficient technology, mobilizing its partners and suppliers in this process of decarbonization . Coincidentally or not, these objectives are perfectly reconciled with that of China, carbon neutrality by 2060.