UC Browser, a mobile browser owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has become more popular than Google’s Chrome in some of Asia’s fastest-growing markets, according to the Wall Street Journal. Citing data from web analytics firm StatCounter, the paper reported that millions of people in India, Indonesia and other emerging markets getting online for […]
Tencent Holdings and JD.com will buy a slice of one of China’s largest online retailers for $863m, forging an alliance to take on Alibaba in e-commerce and digital payments. The pair agreed to buy shares in US-listed Vipshop Holdings at a premium of 55% to their previous close. The deal comes with a business co-operation pact that […]
China has become the first nation to embrace facial recognition technology to authorise digital payments following an innovative play by Alibaba to ease queues in local KFC restaurants. The so-called ‘smile to pay’ service has been introduced in the city of Huangzhou as part of a trial with the chicken chain to boost the customer […]
Customers usually go on shopping apps to search for what they want to buy, but Alibaba also wants to tell them what they want to buy with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). The strategy seems to been working, as Alibaba has seen a surge in mobile engagement during the first quarter of 2017. The […]
Alibaba’s third-party online payment platform Alipay has expanded to the US through an agreement with First Data, a payment technology solutions company. The agreement means customers using Alipay will be able to use the mobile payment service at around 4m US businesses. The implementation of Alipay will begin with First Data’s clients that use its […]
E-commerce site Alibaba took 40.3 percent of all money brands spent on mobile advertising in China in 2016, equivalent to $11 billion, according to new figures. Search engine Baidu received almost 20 percent of mobile ad spend last year ($5.5 billion), while social network Tencent got 11.6 percent ($3.2 billion), according to online reports from […]
Alibaba’s eCommerce rival JD.com (Jingdong Group) has joined forces with Zebra Technologies, a manufacturer of marking, tracking and computer printing technologies, and Chinese integrated IT service provider Digital China, to develop a lab dedicated to the internet of things (IoT) and eCommerce logistics. The ‘IoT + E-commerce Logistics Lab’ is in Beijing’s Shunyi district. The […]
Alibaba Group Holding, the world’s largest e-commerce services provider, is poised to extend its lead in China’s fast-growing mobile advertising market with forecast revenue of US$14.6 billion this year, as total spending on digital campaigns in the mainland hits a new record high. Digital advertising expenditure in the mainland is predicted to rise 27 per […]
China’s digital advertising market is on a tear. Mobile advertising is witnessing double digit growth rates, according to eMarketer, but not everyone is in for a win this year. The market research firm has revised its forecast for Baidu’s digital ad revenues, citing negative press after an investigation was opened into the search giant’s practices, […]
Alibaba is to push forward with plans to sell more goods via mobile devices after the channel spurred its revenues in the second quarter to defy analysts’ estimates. Sales in the period rocketed 32 per cent year-on-year to $3.49bn for the three months to 30 September, ahead of the $3.34bn estimates from analysts. Mobile revenue […]