The investment was disclosed in a filing with Singapore authorities, bringing Alibaba’s total investment to $7 billion in Lazada. Lazada operates under Alibaba’s Global Digital Business, which also manages AliExpress, Trendyol and Daraz.
Under the new business structure, Alibaba's global digital business will be led by CEO Jiang Fan. The board members include Michael Evans, Eddie Wu Yongming and Trudy Dai Shan.
Launched in 2012, Lazada received its first investment from Alibaba in 2016 when the Chinese giant bought a controlling stake. Currently, Alibaba holds more than 80% of Lazada's shares through successive investments.
Alibaba reported a 2% increase in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2022 and agreed to spin off its Cloud Intelligence unit and continue to pump more money into other businesses. Quarterly revenue from the group’s international commerce businesses rose 29% year-on-year to 18.5 billion yuan as total orders on Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol and Daraz increased 15% in the same period.
In its financial filing, Alibaba said Lazada continued to grow its customer base through its customer engagement programs across most regions. The company also provided more value-added services, which helped improve revenue growth.
Lazada is facing fierce competition from Amazon and Sea, Shopee’s parent company. Meanwhile, its domestic rival JD.com is looking to exit the Southeast Asian market to focus on its home country after years of expansion. JD.com’s joint ventures in Thailand and Indonesia announced they would cease operations on March 3 and March 31, respectively. In addition, TikTok Shop is also growing strongly, adding to the tension in the e-commerce race in the region.
Lazada has been under Alibaba since 2016 and is leveraging its resources in technology research and development and logistics. From its current 160 million users, the company wants to increase to 300 million by 2030.
(According to SCMP, Nikkei)
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