Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) cofounder and chairman Jack Ma (馬雲) is to unveil a succession plan today, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported yesterday, with a company spokesman denying a New York Times report that he would retire.
The SCMP, which is owned by Alibaba, said China’s most famous tech billionaire is to “unveil a succession strategy” today — his 54th birthday — but remain the company’s executive chairman.
The New York Times ran an article on Friday, based on an interview with Ma, saying the former teacher turned billionaire planned to use his birthday to announce his retirement to focus on philanthropy.
The paper quoted Ma as saying the decision was “the beginning of an era.”
However, an Alibaba spokesman told the SCMP that the New York Times’ story “was taken out of context, and factually wrong.”
“An Alibaba spokesman said Ma remains the company’s executive chairman and will provide transition plans over a significant period of time,” the SCMP wrote.
The paper added that the succession strategy is part of a plan “for grooming a generation of younger executives to take over the reins.”
Eileen Murphy, a spokesperson for the New York Times, said the newspaper stands by its story.
Ma gave up the title of Alibaba chief executive officer in 2013, but remains a pivotal figure within the company.
The SCMP report ran quotes from Ma himself, but they did not address when exactly he would retire.
Ma said he met with company executives 10 years ago to work out “what Alibaba would do without me.”
“Anybody who knows me knows I embrace the future. This is not about retiring, stepping away or backing off. This is a systematic plan,” the paper quoted Ma as saying.
Ma would be in Russia next week for business meetings, as well as an upcoming trip to South Africa, and a planned speech at the company’s investor day in the middle of this month, the SCMP said.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six