On February 26th, a reporter from the New Beijing News and Shell Finance learned from Alibaba Group that Alibaba Group Chairman Cai Chongxin recently stated in an interview with CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel) that "with organizational restructuring and new management positions, he has more confidence in being a top Chinese e-commerce enterprise to continue to lead.". In addition, he also shared his latest views on the development of overseas e-commerce, Cainiao's listing, and becoming Alibaba's largest individual shareholder with Jack Ma.
In the interview, Cai Chongxin reiterated that Alibaba will focus on e-commerce and cloud. Cai Chongxin stated that China's e-commerce accounts for about 30% of the total social retail sales, but this penetration rate is expected to increase to 40% or even higher in the next five years, which is the long-term driving force of Alibaba's e-commerce business. "This is a long-term growth industry, and we are very excited about it."
In terms of cloud computing, Cai Chongxin believes that the Chinese economy is in the process of digitization and there is a huge demand for cloud computing. "China's GDP accounts for approximately 17% of the world's GDP, while China's digital scale is equivalent to 30% of the world's, making it a very, very good market for developing cloud computing business."
When asked about AI (artificial intelligence) e-commerce and industry competition, Cai Chongxin said that Alibaba's e-commerce business has 33 million 88VIP member users. While serving this group of consumers well, all other consumer groups need to be well served, and now they are very concerned about these needs. At the same time, he emphasized that while price competitiveness is important, what is more important is the consumer experience. Matching demand and supply through AI and algorithms has enormous development potential, which is exactly what Alibaba excels at.
Cai Chongxin also revealed that e-commerce is the most diverse AI application scenario, and Alibaba is increasing investment in related technologies, such as striving to improve user purchase frequency and order volume through more accurate supply and demand matching. In the third quarter of last year, the order volume on Taobao and Tmall platforms successfully achieved double-digit growth.
The progress of cloud business spin off and Cainiao's listing has received widespread market attention. Regarding this, Cai Chongxin said, "In a good market environment, it is meaningful to independently value some businesses through capital market transactions. The value of the business will be more transparent to investors, making it easier for investors to value the overall business through the classification and aggregation valuation method. However, since the announcement of the restructuring in March last year, market sentiment has been weak, and conducting capital market transactions has actually failed to bring transparency to the potential value of the business.". Therefore, we have decided, first, not to split the cloud business, but to focus on what synergies the cloud can bring to the core business; Secondly, in the current market environment, for rookies, we hope to wait for a better opportunity to go public
In addition, regarding the fierce competition of Chinese e-commerce companies such as Temu, Shein, and TikTok in the US market, and whether Alibaba will also enter the US market, Cai Chongxin stated that Chinese manufacturing has excellent quality, reasonable prices, and great consumer value. Alibaba will observe and think about the next step. At the same time, he also emphasized, "The United States is just a part of the world, and there are other markets in the world that can participate. Our e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress and Trendyol have been successful in other markets around the world, and we will continue to execute our strategies in these regions."
Speaking of Jack Ma and Cai Chongxin becoming the largest individual shareholders of Alibaba, Cai Chongxin said that the founder of the company has become an important shareholder, demonstrating confidence in the company, which is a very important signal. As the chairman, he believes that the most important thing is to have a strong management team in place, injecting new vitality into management and injecting new confidence into employees.