Recently, Taobao established a live streaming e-commerce management company, which attracted market attention. It is reported that Taobao provides "nanny style" full custody operation services for "novice anchors" and celebrities, KOLs, and MCN institutions who are interested in joining Taobao for broadcasting.
Driven by this news, Alibaba's Hong Kong stock price rose nearly 3% during trading, rebounding to a short-term high after the release of its quarterly report on February 7th.
In addition, the establishment of Taobao's live streaming e-commerce company this time will be operated by the Taotian live streaming operation team, and will not be aimed at profitability, but mainly driven by incubating new anchors, adopting a flexible cooperation model of minimum guarantee or profit sharing with anchors.
In the current strategic context of Alibaba's ongoing focus. Does Taobao's personal "manipulation" of live streaming sales mean that Alibaba will continue to intensify its return to the main e-commerce business, and has become a focus of attention in the capital market.
Alibaba Group CEO and Taotian Group CEO Wu Yongming stated in a performance conference call on February 7th that 2024 will be a year for Taotian Group to improve its comprehensive capabilities and also a year for investment. According to Wu Yongming, the highest priority of the group is to reignite the growth momentum of its two core businesses, e-commerce and cloud computing.
According to Alibaba's latest quarterly financial report, Taotian Group's current revenue was 129.07 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of only 2%. Increasing live streaming investment may also reveal Alibaba's strategic shift in the e-commerce field.
It is worth noting that on December 22, 2023, Wu Yongming announced a change in the management of Taotian Group, and the Youth Management Group took over comprehensively. Among them, Cheng Daofang will lead the Taobao Live and Content Business Unit, responsible for promoting the construction and innovation of Taobao's content.
According to data, Beijing Baina Yuedong Technology Co., Ltd., which is led by Cheng Daofang, is the shareholder of Taobao's newly established live streaming management company.
On the other hand, under the attack of new and old e-commerce forces such as Pinduoduo, Jingdong, Tiktok, Alibaba is also facing considerable pressure to maintain its leading position in the e-commerce market.
At present, the live track continues to be hot, which has become the focus of the e-commerce industry. In 2024, all major Internet giants will choose to increase the live broadcast with goods business.
On January 29th, Ma Huateng stated at Tencent's annual meeting that live streaming e-commerce will be the direction that Video Number will fully focus on in 2024. At the same time, it was also revealed that JD.com was urgently formulating a recruitment plan for anchors and required that recruitment anchors not be assessed for GMV or gross profit.
With traditional e-commerce in China entering a relatively saturated state in recent years, the inherent traffic of live streaming in the stock game era has a positive impact on the e-commerce industry.
Taobao's choice to increase its live streaming business clearly has the intention of seizing traffic entry. It is also worth looking forward to how other competitors will respond in the future.