I like how this site compares companies with international market to Alibaba. Alibaba is only there to serve the Chinese. Anyone else would never use any of Alibaba's services.Chinese has over one billion in population, they are very strict with foreign company. Of course Alibaba is going to seem like a great investment... for a short term. However is a horrible investment in long short term. The Chinese population will decline, as they do so will profit of this company.
All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
51–60 of 109 posts
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#52I've seen a lot of articles talking about how huge Alibaba is, but they all seem to focus only on transaction volume, e.g 'Alibaba has more sales than Amazon and eBay combined!'. I was really surprised when I read their filing, $4.7B in total revenue last financial year, $5.7B in the first 9 months of this financial year. Amazon + eBay in 2013 pulled in $33B in revenue. They seem to be processing a lot of transaction…
I agree. Every article I've come across goes out of the way to avoid ever talking about Alibaba's actual revenue. It's clear there's an immense amount of pumping going on leading up to the IPO. Fact is, Alibaba isn't all that large at all. And 57% revenue growth on ~$8 billion in annual sales, while excellent, is not earth shattering. A lot of US tech companies have pulled off that kind of growth, Amazon included.
A lot? Care to cite? You may be correct but my gut says a few have done it. A "lot" seems like overstatement.
And you say "Amazon included." Have you ever seen Amazon's sales growth charted? It's the definition of hockey stick growth. Of course they're included, but who else is?
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#53You could never combine Western companies to do what Alibaba did because of anticompetive, protectionist, nationalist, and corrupt policies in China. The chart can be read in reverse, describing what Alibaba knocked-off.
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#54Pity its not Alibaba that is for sale in the "IPO" then, just a Cayman Islands company which holds a "profit participation" right which may or may not be legal in China. The article also points out that much of Alibaba is not actually owned by the company but by Jack Ma personally, so no participation in that.
Interesting - I didn't know that as I haven't been following the story closely.
For others who may be in the same boat, I found some additional details here:
"Alibaba will not own most of its Chinese assets, including Taobao Marketplace and Alibaba.com. So the companies that are the core of Alibaba’s Chinese operations — the main reason for the anticipated heated investor demand — will not even be owned by Alibaba... Instead, the company is using a so-called variable interest entity structure."
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/i-p-o-revives-debate-...
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#55I love this article. Despite the multitudes of news sources telling us about how commerce is now global and business is no longer tied to a place and the internet is changing the world, there is still an ocean of enterprises of which we US-based-or-english-speaking technologists are ignorant. Take a moment to think about this: Alibaba is a huge company, growing in an absolutely enormous market, providing a pile of se…
> I hope this article opens peoples' eyes to the fact that the US-based-or-english-speaking countries are soon going to be a relatively small portion of the world. We need news sources like this to practice the globalization sermon they all preach. Agreed. It's not just in the tech sector, and not just in the commerce sector either. The US (and many English-speaking countries) tend to be incredibly US-centric and eur…
> The US (and many English-speaking countries) tend to be incredibly US-centric and euro-centric in their worldview and news coverage.
For example, right now, the world's largest democracy is holding the largest democratic election in the history of human civilization[0].
I find this attitude very weird. Every time I encounter it in the real world, it comes off as a humble brag. As in, oh the rest of the west is so ignorant and dumb, me? I know all about your culture.
From my experience, huge demographics of people around the world don't really care about what happens outside their tribes. On the other hand, no one goes around chiding say Indian villagers on why they are not more aware of the complex inter-dynamics of the current Russian-European conflict. Somehow expecting everyone to be aware of your favorite world topic appears to be the same equivalent of assuming that everyone that writes code be well versed in whatever stack you are familiar in.
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I hope this article opens peoples' eyes to the fact that the US-based-or-english-speaking countries are soon going to be a relatively small portion of the world. We need news sources like this to practice the globalization sermon they all preach. LOL. I don't get how your comment is at the top. People in technology field know about it. Your question should be how China is blocking out other tech companies unless the…
Despite this poster's argumentative tone, they speak the truth. The tech scene in China is pretty limited due to tremendous government influence / interference. Heck, step 1 of setting up a foreign company in China is to bribe local authorities to poke a hole in the Great Firewall so it stops throttling your new office's VPNs.
> China is to bribe local authorities to poke a hole in the Great Firewall so it stops throttling your new office's VPNs.
Getting a direct line to the outside internet doesn't require bribing an official, nor is it illegal for a company to have a connection that doesn't go through the GFW (at least right now).
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#57I love this article. Despite the multitudes of news sources telling us about how commerce is now global and business is no longer tied to a place and the internet is changing the world, there is still an ocean of enterprises of which we US-based-or-english-speaking technologists are ignorant. Take a moment to think about this: Alibaba is a huge company, growing in an absolutely enormous market, providing a pile of se…
It's not exactly purely an aspect of Western companies ignoring China or localizing property for China that is the culprit here. The Chinese government also makes it difficult, especially in the realm of internet services, for Western companies to play. I know plenty of American technologists who are well aware of Chinese internet properties, how could they not, when disproportionately many American technologists are…
Gmail technically isn't blocked in China, the GFW just messes with it sometime.
Otherwise your comment is spot on: American companies don't compete in China not because they don't want to, but because they can't.
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#58I love this article. Despite the multitudes of news sources telling us about how commerce is now global and business is no longer tied to a place and the internet is changing the world, there is still an ocean of enterprises of which we US-based-or-english-speaking technologists are ignorant. Take a moment to think about this: Alibaba is a huge company, growing in an absolutely enormous market, providing a pile of se…
> Who will satisfy them?
From the sounds of it, Alibaba has it covered
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#59Or Apple?
Re: All the Western companies you’d have to combine to get something like Alibaba
#60I've seen a lot of articles talking about how huge Alibaba is, but they all seem to focus only on transaction volume, e.g 'Alibaba has more sales than Amazon and eBay combined!'. I was really surprised when I read their filing, $4.7B in total revenue last financial year, $5.7B in the first 9 months of this financial year. Amazon + eBay in 2013 pulled in $33B in revenue. They seem to be processing a lot of transaction…
Yes, low transaction fee is part of Alibaba's strategy to grow the eCommerce market in China (and also a major reason why eBay failed their China venture to Taobao in early years).
Amazon/eBay transaction fees (~10%) seem ridiculously high. They almost eat up all margins of many industries. Many small business sellers are complaining about it.