Alibaba’s B2B e-commerce platform eyes 20% growth in 2024, shrugs off rising competition
- Alibaba.com is projecting US$60 billion in GMV this year, according to the sourcing platform’s president, who dismissed competition from PDD and ByteDance
The sourcing platform’s turnover growth slowed after a sevenfold increase in GMV over the previous five years, Zhang told the South China Morning Post in an interview in Hong Kong on Thursday.
“It’s quite hard to double GMV every single year due to an increasingly large base,” he said. “The core issue is about the business model, as we need to make new breakthroughs and transformations.”
Alibaba.com started in 1999 as an online yellow book to help overseas bulk buyers find Chinese manufacturers. It is now largely functioning as a transaction platform that directly links Chinese suppliers with foreign businesses. Alibaba.com is part of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, one of the growth engines for Alibaba Group, the owner of South China Morning Post.
Chinese merchants on the platform saw the combined value of their exports reach US$350 billion last year, or roughly 10 per cent of the value of all Chinese exports, which increased 7 per cent in 2023 to US$3.6 trillion.
Alibaba.com has more than 200,000 suppliers, 90 per cent of whom are based in China. Half of the products offered on the platform are not for consumer use, according to Zhang. These include machinery tools, construction materials, laser cutting devices and even small food trucks.
“The turnover of non-consumer goods is growing faster than consumer goods,” he said.
