Dince his disgrace in November 2020, we have been watching for his appearances like that of a comet in the sky. On March 27, Jack Ma returned to his hometown of Hangzhou for a brief visit to the company he founded in 1999, Alibaba. Then he set off again towards the confines of the universe. The day after his visit, the company announced its plan to split into at least six separate entities listed on the stock exchange.
Thursday, May 18, the giant officially kicked off its dismantling. The parent company will keep the highly profitable e-commerce platforms in China. The cloud computing subsidiary, in small form, will be sold to its own shareholders. The other “baba babies”, such as delivery services, the grocery chain, logistics and media, will gradually be listed on the stock exchange and Alibaba will consider its complete withdrawal from these activities on a case-by-case basis. At the same time, the international activities will be restructured or sold.
Too arrogant, too powerful
The Chinese giant, which was once the largest company in the country and which is still worth more than 200 billion euros on the stock market, has not stopped drinking the chalice since Emperor Xi, like his Roman predecessors, doomed society to commit suicide. Too arrogant, too powerful, she is brought to heel like other tech giants, like Tencent, but with special treatment given Jack Ma’s international notoriety. She has already received 2.6 billion euros in fines for monopolistic practice.
Behind this dramaturgy hides a less political reason. Alibaba is no longer growing. In the first quarter of the year, its revenue grew by only 2% and its flagship platforms, Taobao and Tmall, recorded a decline of 3%. The recovery in consumption, which was expected to be very strong after the end of the sanitary confinements, did not occur. Or at least not in online shopping.
The Chinese, who had just come out of their confinement, preferred to go to restaurants and the cinema rather than stay behind their computers. Which in itself is good news. This is coupled with another, the level of competition in online commerce is such in China that Alibaba is pushed to lose weight to regain its dynamism in the face of fierce competition. Change of time.