US online retail giant Amazon.com Inc has set up shop on the business-to-consumer platform of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) as it seeks a greater presence in the massive Chinese market.
The Seattle-based firm is offering food, women’s footwear, toys and kitchenware through its Tmall.com (天貓) store, which was “quietly” launched on Thursday, Chinese media reported.
Amazon’s storefront carried the message: “It’s Day 1.”
Amazon and Alibaba are considered competitors in some areas, but unlike the US firm, the Chinese company has no product stocks of its own, simply providing a trading platform.
“We welcome Amazon to the Alibaba ecosystem, and their presence will further broaden the selection of products and elevate the shopping experience for Chinese consumers on Tmall,” an Alibaba spokeswoman said in a statement yesterday.
Tmall is estimated to hold more than half the market in China for business-to-consumer transactions.
Amazon is not new to China. It opened an official store on Tmall for its Kindle e-book reader last year.
The firm made its first foray into China in August 2004 through the acquisition of Joyo.com (卓越), an online retailer of books, music and videos. The Web site was rebranded as Amazon.cn in 2011.
“China’s e-commerce industry is fast-growing and nobody wants to miss it,” e-commerce services provider HC International Inc’s (慧聰) Yang Xiao said. “Amazon wants to add an additional distribution channel in China.”
He said the move could be aimed more at China’s JD.com (京東), which has a similar business model to Amazon and also competes with Alibaba.
“It’s simple game logic — an enemy’s enemy is a friend,” Yang said. “Amazon is more likely targeting JD.com and it’s a win-win situation for Tmall.”
Amazon is initially selling nearly 500 items, with more expected to be made available later.
As of yesterday morning, the top sellers on the Amazon store included a 220 yuan (US$36) German drinks container and canned almonds imported from the US with a price tag of 44 yuan.
China in 2013 overtook the US to be the world’s largest online retail market, with firms such as Alibaba among the most prominent, but the Chinese e-commerce giant has also been criticized by Beijing for failing to stop sales of fake goods through its online platforms, which has in turn raised questions by US stock market regulators.
In related news, the Office of the US Trade Representative released its latest list of so-called notorious markets, identifying sites that cause “significant financial losses” for US companies to piracy and other forms of intellectual property infringement.
The survey identified physical marketplaces in 10 nations where significant amounts of counterfeit goods are sold — Argentina, Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay, Thailand and Uruguay.
Particular areas of concern are Argentina’s La Salada, which the report identified as South America’s largest black market; the Silk Market in Beijing, where vendors reportedly have access “to a supply of newly manufactured counterfeit products to replace those that have been confiscated”; the Harco Gladok market in Jakarta, listed as Indonesia’s largest trade center for consumer electronics and related goods; and the Computer Village Market in Lagos, Nigeria, reportedly the largest market for knockoff computer products and accessories in the nation.
China is the source of many of the counterfeit goods sold in markets in Prado, Italy; Lagos; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay; and Bangkok, according to the report.
The report lists a number of Web sites on which enforcement activities have cut down on the quantity of counterfeit goods sold, including Seriesyonkis.com, Aiseesoft.com, Xunlei.com, wawa-mania.ec, Mp3skull.com and Share-rapid.cz.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”