FILE PHOTO: The Alibaba Group logo is lit up at its office building in Beijing, China August 9, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
December 17, 2021
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has set a target for gross merchandise volume of $100 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV), the total sum of purchasing transactions, for its Southeast Asian marketplace Lazada.
The goal, which was shared with investors on Thursday and later in a public online presentation, ups the ante for the company, which entered the region via acquisition in 2016 and competes fiercely with rivals.
Lazada generated $21 billion in GMV from September 2020 to the same month in 2021, according to the presentation. It also hopes to serve 300 million customers, roughly double its current count.
By comparison, Sea Ltd’s Shopee, the market leader in the region, generated $35.4 billion in GMV for the full calendar 2020 year.
The division ranks itself the third-top player in Southeast Asia, behind MercadoLibre Inc and Shopee, according to the presentation.
Lazada has undergone top personnel changes since Alibaba acquired it, with two CEOs stepping down before current CEO Chun Li took the helm in 2020.
Earlier this month Alibaba announced an executive reshuffling that saw Jiang Fan, who previously led the company’s main Taobao and Tmall divisions, appointed to head up a newly formed international digital commerce unit that will include Lazada and AliExpress, the company’s e-commerce site targeting parts of Europe and South America.
Alibaba will conclude its two-day summit for investors on Friday with the first major public remarks from Toby Xu, who is set to replace longtime CFO Maggie Wu. CEO Daniel Zhang will also speak.
(Reporting by Josh Horwitz; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
