Alibaba owner, Jack Ma, says there is no timeframe to go public with Alibaba, a business-to-business site.
Ma owns Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay and Yahoo China.
The group, he says, has money in the bank, left over from Yahoo's $1 billion investment for a 40% stake and from its earlier capital raising activities.
Ma says Alipay, Yahoo china and Taobao could all have zero revenue and they would still be in the black.
Alibaba is duking it out with eBay's Eachnet service for market share. Neither company charges a service for their auction sites.
"Today, I want the Taobao team to focus on getting more and more people and more and more transactions." Add to that, he wants Eachnet to have less and less of each.
Once Alibaba has the market-share they need/want, then they will start charging. Right now, it seems to be a battle between eBay and Alibaba to see who can go the longest without charging a fee.
Who do you think will come out on top?
My bet is on Jack Ma. He's Chinese and he knows China.
What do you think?
Hard to tell. I would say websites dedicated to asia product sourcing are much more adapted. There are a lot more htan alibaba, which seems sometimes overloaded. Too much coice, low qualification...
Our clients don't all use web platforms, by the way. Old Canton fair is a real marketplace that still works...
Posted by: the chief | September 14, 2006 9:26 AM | Permalink to Comment