Alibaba, founded in China in 1999 with an initial capital of $2,000, has declared that its strategy moving forward is to defeat eBay, with a firm intention to acquire Yahoo and keep the world’s leading search engine, Google, at bay.
Alibaba’s CEO, Jack Ma, vowed to lead Google to defeat in the Chinese market and become the “undisputed king” of the web in the country.
Ma stated that Google is facing numerous challenges in China, and the reason for the company selling 40% of its shares to Yahoo for $1 billion is to “invest in building its own search engine to push Google out of the Asian territory.”
He also emphasized that the company’s e-commerce platform, taobao.com, has effectively dashed all hopes for the online commerce giant eBay. “Alibaba is now 20 times larger than eBay and has 11 million product listings on its website. The game is nearing its end. As for search engines, Google is indeed very strong, but that doesn’t mean they will be a formidable competitor in China.”
Alibaba’s CEO continued: “Google and Yahoo are ocean sharks. We are the crocodiles in the Yangtze River. The battle is taking place in the Yangtze. Therefore, we have more advantages over them.”
Alibaba also plans to expand its territory into South Korea within the next two years, followed by Japan and other Asian countries. Ma predicts that China will become “the number one country for the Internet in the world” in just five years.
P.T. (according to AFP)
