Tag: taobao

New mobile commerce firm wins investment support from Alibab and Ant Financial

| June 26, 2015

Koubei has won the interest of two of China’s largest companies

Chinese e-commerce mammoth Alibaba and Ant Financial, another prominent company in China, have each invested $483 million into Koubei, a joint venture in the mobile commerce space. Koubei is designed to provide consumers with the ability to order and pay for products from local services operating in China. Doing so can be accomplished over a smartphone, and the initial launch of this service will focus on food and beverage delivery.

Koubei aims to give consumers and merchants a new way to interact with one another

Those using Koubei will be able to use the Alipay Wallet to make mobile purchases. They may also be able to use the Taobao mobile application, which is controlled by Alibaba. Though the initial launch of the service will focus on the food and beverage segment, Koubei will expand to include local merchants, providing consumers with a way to purchase products from stores in their area. Koubkei may also provide merchants with promising marketing opportunities, giving them a platform from which to launch promotion campaigns and reach new mobile consumers.

Mobile commerce platform will serve as a boost for Alibaba and Ant Financial

Mobile Commerce - Company InvestmentKoubei intends to build a local services ecosystem that will be a benefit to merchants and consumers alike. This is something that Alibaba has shown significant interest in, as the company has its own food ordering and delivery business in the Tao Diandian brand. Ant Financial also has an interest in the mobile commerce ventures of Koubei, as the company has been involved in the mobile space for some time, managing Alibaba’s Alipay platform and making it possible for a wide range of consumers to purchase products from their mobile devices.

Mobile commerce continues to thrives in China

China has become one of the most robust mobile markets in the world. Smartphone penetration is high, and consumers have shown a great deal of interest in being able to shop for and purchase products with their mobile devices through a variety of platforms. Koubei will be one of the latest mobile commerce platforms to launch in China, and the support it has received from Alibaba and Ant Financial will give it a competitive edge.

Alibaba to break into mobile games

| January 13, 2014

Alibaba sees promise in the mobile space

Alibaba, China’s largest retail organization akin to eBay and Amazon, has announced that it plans to break into the world of mobile games. China has become one of the most promising markets for mobile gaming, partly due to the rapid growth of smartphone and tablet ownership. Alibaba has been seeing a major rise in the potential of the mobile space and is not keen to be left behind by its competitors.

Tencent and Alibaba may clash on mobile games

Alibaba is currently working to develop its own mobile gaming platform. This move likely comes as a response to Tencent’s efforts to make its gratuitously popular WeChat application into a gaming platform. Tencent currently boasts of the strongest presence in China’s mobile sector. The WeChat application has more than 570 million downloads and Tencent itself is behind many of the country’s most popular mobile games. Alibaba is keen to break into the mobile space more aggressively and break the monopoly that Tencent is building.

Developers may find Alibaba’s platform attractive

Mobile Games - AlibabaThe organization is providing access to its mobile gaming platform to developers for free this year. This initiative aims to attract game developers to the platform and provide them with the resources they need to develop engaging mobile games that will be associated with Alibaba in the future. The revenue that these games produce will be split, with 70% of the revenue going to developers and 20% going to Alibaba. Approximately 10% of the revenue generated by these mobile games will be donated to rural education initiatives.

Games to be marketed and distributed through Taobao

Alibaba has also committed itself to fully supporting the mobile games that are developed for its platform. The organization will market and distribute these games through its Taobao e-commerce division, which boasts of 700 million users. This will provide developers with a great deal of exposure and help them reach a larger audience that they may not have had access to in the past.