박재훈투영인
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5 months ago
3 Photos That Help Explain the Frenzy Over Alibaba's IPO(2014년 9월 18일)
If you live in China, or perhaps Russia, or are part of the Chinese diaspora, you already know how big a deal Alibaba Group is. And if you're one of the investors clamoring for a piece — any piece — of the giant e-commerce company, there's no doubt you're sold on its prospects.For others, though, who are still trying to wrap their brains around how a Chinese company founded in an apartment — not a Silicon Valley garage — could pull off the world's largest initial public offering, here's some visual help.No, that's not the control room at NORAD. It's a photo from last year of Alibaba's employees watching a live broadcast of transactions on Singles' Day, which celebrates those without a significant other. The day in November has become a huge occasion for e-commerce companies to deluge the Internet with steep discounts.Last year, Alibaba's two main platforms — Taobao Marketplace and Tmall — had sales of about $5.8 billion during the 24-hour period. For some context, sales on Cyber Monday, the busiest online shopping day in the U.S., hit a record of about $2 billion in 2013.Of course, what would you expect, given that the number of Internet users in China — 632 million, according to government data — is about double the total population of the U.S. Meanwhile, a McKinsey & Co. report sees China's e-tailing market growing to as much as $395 billion next year, which is triple the amount in 2011."Because Chinese retail is coming of age in the midst of the digital revolution, its evolution may follow a different — and faster — trajectory than what has occurred in other countries," the report said.Singles' Day also demonstrated Alibaba's logistical prowess: The company said it processed 254 million orders within 24 hours and handled 156 million packages, compared with its daily average of almost 17 million, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.Pictured here are workers packaging yarn at an office in Qinghe county, about 230 miles from Beijing. The significance?It's rural regions like this that are playing a big role in the growth of Alibaba's platforms. About 4.5 million sellers, or slightly more than half of those hawking their goods on the company's Chinese retail marketplaces, were located outside of China's major cities (also known as tier 1 and 2 cities), according to Alibaba's filing. About 173 million buyers, or 62 percent of those actively making purchases, also reside outside of the big cities. And as more rural residents go digital thanks to lower-priced smartphones from companies such as Xiaomi, Alibaba stands to benefit.As Bloomberg News reporter Lulu Yilun Chen wrote last year, Alibaba has helped people such as Liu Yuguo rake in more than $1.6 million in just two years by selling yarn on Taobao. That enabled the former farmer with a seventh-grade education to buy a four-story office and a BMW X6 sports utility vehicle.In his letter to investors, Alibaba founder Jack Ma said the company's mission is "to make it easy to do business anywhere." And apparently, selling anything, whether that's an "advanced outdoor energy efficiency hot dog trailer" (pictured here, starting at $1,280), a life-size Vladimir Putin wax figure or cherries harvested in Utah.In its SEC filing, Alibaba said more than 170 tons of cherries grown by farmers in the U.S. were sold to Chinese consumers last year through Tmall, in partnership with the Agricultural Trade Office in Shanghai and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In boasting about its logistical abilities, the company said the cherries were delivered from the tree to the table within 72 hours. Alibaba also cited Chilean blueberries, Alaskan king crab and lobsters from Canada as examples of overseas perishables it has made available to Chinese consumers.It's this dizzying array of products that helps Alibaba reach users outside of China. And with the company focused on brokering transactions into and out of the country, that promises to "enable a new age of border-hopping commerce that bypasses middlemen," Bloomberg Businessweek's Brad Stone wrote last month. Add to that the $21.8 billion Alibaba raised in its IPO, and you have a company capable of becoming the first truly global online marketplace.
