Ford has put a lot of focus on China’s electric vehicle market — with a local joint venture expected to lead to 15 electric or hybrid models on sale in the country by 2025 — and today the automotive giant announced a tie-in with Alibaba to fulfill its ambitious goals.
The scope of alliance is fairly broad and vague at this point, but a large chunk of the”strategic… Read More
Category: alibaba
As Cook and Pichai leave China, Valley confronts rising internet tyranny in world’s second largest market
It’s been a bad few months for internet freedom in China (and really a bad few decades, but who is counting?). The government brought into force a broad-ranging “cybersecurity law” earlier this year that empowers Beijing to take unilateral control over critical internet infrastructure, while also mandating that foreign companies keep all citizen data local inside China… Read More
The world’s biggest Starbucks outlet is also AR-enhanced
Starbucks has made its latest and biggest outlet even bigger, with augmented reality.
The coffee giant will on Wednesday open its new 30,000 sq ft premises in Shanghai, its biggest outlet in the world to date.
SEE ALSO: Barista reveals the wors…
Crunch Report | Tinder is using AI to get you hooked up
Tinder tests a new feature that uses AI to suggest who to “super like,” BlackBerry will pay Nokia $137 million over a contract dispute and Alibaba is looking to acquire technology and talent from Visualead in Tel Aviv. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Alibaba is buying Israeli startup Visualead’s tech to establish a Tel Aviv R&D center
Alibaba announced a massive $15 billion research ‘DAMO Academy’ project focused on R&D last month, and it is laying the groundwork for an office in Tel Aviv through a deal to acquire technology and talent from Israeli startup Visualead. Visualead developed a new kind of ‘dot-less’ QR code that Alibaba had used for its business in China. The company was founded in… Read More
Alibaba invests $2.9B in hypermarket operator Sun Art to continue its offline retail push
Alibaba is continuing its expansion into offline retail after the Chinese e-commerce giant bought up more than one-third of one of Chinese most prolific operators of hypermarket stores. The firm announced today it has spent HK$22.4 billion (around US$2.88 billion) to acquire of 36.16 percent in Sun Art Retail Group, a Hong Kong-listed business that operates 446 hypermarkets across 224… Read More
Tencent reportedly invests $150M in cinema ticketing startup Maoyan
Tencent announced another impressive quarter of financials yesterday, but the Chinese internet giant — which is creeping towards a $500 billion market cap — made other financial moves this week. Reuters reported that the firm invested $150 million Chinese cinema ticketing startup Maoyan, which was created from a merger between dominant players Maoyan and Tencent-backed Weiying… Read More
Please enjoy Pharrell’s very cringeworthy song to celebrate China’s biggest shopping day
/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F652373%2F7d5cfb86-a626-4775-bc11-7916fa886dec.jpg)
As they say, everyone has a price.
Pharrell co-wrote and performed a new song in China to celebrate Singles’ Day — the world’s biggest shopping holiday.
This year, Chinese shoppers spent $25 billion on Alibaba’s Taobao site in just 24 hours, blowing events like Black Friday completely out of the water.
Pharrell and his co-performer, Chinese-Canadian singer Kris Wu, were onstage for Alibaba’s huge extravaganza celebrating the shopping day.
There’s no way any description could do this song justice, so you’ll have to just listen for yourself: Read more…
More about China, Alibaba, Taobao, Pharrell, and Pharrell Williams
View More Please enjoy Pharrell’s very cringeworthy song to celebrate China’s biggest shopping day7 in 10 people in Southeast Asia scrambled to buy on ‘Singles’ Day’ via their mobiles
/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F648188%2F28a482cb-a094-4dcf-9cba-3f6d81d78b14.JPG)
If you hadn’t heard, Saturday’s Singles’ Day sale in China absolutely smashed last year’s already phenomenal record, bringing in $25 billion in a day on a single shopping site — Alibaba Taobao.
Over in Southeast Asia, a quieter storm is brewing, but it’s an important indicator of a market that’s rapidly embracing ecommerce.
Lazada — incidentally majority owned by Alibaba — is of the more popular ecommerce sites that sells across the region comprising countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Saturday’s sale netted Lazada a pretty respectable $123 million in sales, or 6.5 million items, nearly double last year’s performance. Read more…
More about Shopping, Alibaba, Taobao, Black Friday, and Singles Day
View More 7 in 10 people in Southeast Asia scrambled to buy on ‘Singles’ Day’ via their mobilesChinese shoppers spent $25 *billion* on Alibaba’s Singles Day
/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F648044%2Fa3abe84f-d7a5-4a2d-8858-7a57835af403.jpg)
Singles Day is like if Amazon Prime Day was a real national holiday. And this year, shoppers in China spent $25 billion in 24 hours.
The 8-year-old e-commerce holiday promoted by Alibaba—Amazon’s biggest competitor and an e-commerce force in China—started as an anti-Valentine’s Day encouraging single people to buy gifts for themselves every Nov. 11. Now, it comes with crazy deals and nationally televised concerts. This year, Nicole Kidman and Pharrell Williams made appearances.
Shoppers spent $25.3 billion, or 168.2 billion yuan, this year—a 40 percent jump from last year’s $17.8 billion. That’s 1.48 billion transactions, or 256,000 transactions per second at the day’s peak. Read more…
More about Amazon, China, Asia, Alibaba, and Jack Ma
View More Chinese shoppers spent $25 *billion* on Alibaba’s Singles DayChina’s second largest e-commerce firm just showed Alibaba has serious competition
Alibaba invented China’s biggest shopping day — 11/11 aka Single’s Day — and it dominates the headlines with record sales year-on-year, but another company just stepped out to remind us that others are busy trying to close the gap. JD.com, the perennial challenger to Alibaba’s e-commerce empire in China, just revealed its 11/11 figures for the first time. While… Read More
Alibaba smashes its Single’s Day record once again as sales cross $25 billion
Alibaba has set another Single’s Day record after the e-commerce giant sold over $25 billion of product on the Chinese biggest online shopping date. The full number comes in at 163.8 billion RMB, that’s roughly $25.4 billion, in GMV — that’s “gross merchandise volume” which is used to measure a dollar value for all sales on a platform. In Alibaba’s… Read More