US Corporate Counsel Magazine Publishes Article On The Rise & Rise of Ali Baba

Written by Sean Hocking

From memory this is the first time we've seen such a detailed article from one of the Law.com stable about a Chinese internet company. Corporate Counsel write: Alibaba Shows the Future of China 2.0 B2B Web portal's parent company goes beyond the China-as-factory model to build an empire in cyberspace David Hechler Corporate Counsel May 8, 2008 The event last November had all the earmarks of a big stock launch: photo ops with the charismatic business leader, a crush of international media, and the unmistakable buzz that comes with being near the center of the financial universe. Only this wasn't a stock listed in New York. It was a Chinese business-to-business Web portal called Alibaba.com that was about to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The performance didn't disappoint. The opening price, which had struck some analysts as high at $1.75, skyrocketed nearly 200 percent to about $5.10. By the first day's close, Alibaba.com had raised a near-record $1.5 billion -- at the time trailing only the $1.7 billion generated by Google Inc. in 2004 for the largest IPO haul by an Internet company. These are heady days for Chinese Internet companies -- indeed, for Chinese companies in general, which are emerging from assembly-plant anonymity to fashion their own distinct identities. Brand names like Alibaba, Baidu and Taobao may not be household fixtures in the United States, but they are in China. And they're proving that they can compete against anyone in their home nation, where they have some definite advantages. Baidu is China's most popular search engine, commanding about 60 percent of the market there -- while the mighty Google has only managed to creep up to about 25 percent. Similarly, Taobao, which is another piece of the Alibaba Group -- it's the consumer auction portal that goes along with the newly public business-to-business (B2B) company -- controls upward of 80 percent of the consumer market, with 40 million registered users. And eBay Inc.? Struggling to compete, it purchased an established domestic player -- Tom.com -- yet its market share still dropped to single digits last summer. (The company declined requests for an interview.) Full Article

 

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