Author | Liu Baodan From performance to market confidence, Meituan is walking out of a three-year low point, but Wang Xing is not stopping there - he has even bigger plans. Going overseas has become a must for Chinese companies. Meituan, which has been warming up for 8 years, has finally made up its mind to put going overseas on the agenda. Recently, Meituan began recruiting senior engineers for international silver enterprise direct connection. After the model was successful in the Hong Kong market, Meituan officially kicked off its overseas expansion, accelerated recruitment and put the first stop of the overseas expansion in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. Going overseas is a critical turning point, which means that after more than ten years of capacity accumulation, Meituan has to export its local life capabilities to the world, which is as significant as the replication of TikTok by ByteDance. In the wave of Internet companies going overseas, Meituan went overseas later because local life patterns are more important than social, e-commerce and other industries. However, Wang Xing must make this move. Against the background of intensified domestic competition and the shrinking of community group buying, he must find a new growth story. On his entrepreneurial journey, Wang Xing is still determined to create a new business legend in this global adventure. A must-have question. Meituan has fought a beautiful takeaway battle in Hong Kong. On May 6, Measurable AI, a market research firm, released the latest data showing that by March 2024, according to the number of orders, KeeTa, the takeaway business of Meituan in Hong Kong, has a market share of 44%, rising to the largest takeaway platform in Hong Kong. However, Hong Kong is only a stopover for Meituan's overseas expansion, and Meituan has set its real meaning of going overseas in Saudi Arabia. Wall Street news learned that Meituan has been recruiting people around the direction of going overseas in the past two months. The positions include engineers, overseas human resources and operation experts, international payment and transaction product managers, mainly responsible for payments, employee management and related products in overseas markets. More importantly, the recruitment of local talents. More than a month ago, Meituan posted relevant recruitment information on LinkedIn and the Middle East recruitment platform Baye.com, with Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, as the place of work. From the city selection, Meituan did not choose the United States with a larger market space, nor did it choose Southeast Asia where culture and food are more similar, but chose Saudi Arabia. It can be seen that Meituan's overseas expansion strategy still has a heavy experimental component and is more cautious. Wang Xing is not fighting an unprepared battle. For this overseas expansion, Meituan has been planning for many years. As early as 2016, Wang Xing began to consider the issue of going overseas and visited Silicon Valley, Berlin, Israel, Jakarta and other places. In 2017, Meituan officially laid out overseas accommodation business, first connecting hotels in nearly 100 countries overseas to the Meituan application. At that time, the domestic and foreign takeaway wars were in full swing, and with Meituan's listing in Hong Kong in 2018, Wang Xing's overseas strategy was forced to be shelved. Since then, Meituan has also made a series of international investments, including Swiggy in India, Gojek in Indonesia, and Opay in Nigeria, involving food, taxis, payments and other fields, to prepare for going overseas. Along with the frequent news reports of Meituan's victory in Hong Kong, Meituan's overseas plan was finally brought to an unprecedented strategic height in 2024, and Wang Xing once again rushed to the forefront. In February, Meituan put the home business group, the in-store business group and other businesses into the core local business sector, and appointed Wang Putong as CEO, while Wang Xing personally took charge of overseas business, which ensured the landing of the overseas expansion strategy in the organizational structure. In fact, before the confirmation of the overseas expansion strategy, Wang Xing personally visited the Middle East last May and met with members of the Saudi royal family, laying the foundation for Meituan's layout in Saudi Arabia.

In today's weather is good. Today's weather is good.

Following last year's unprecedented "One拆Six" initiative, alibaba's core e-commerce business is undergoing another major adjustment.

On November 21, alibaba Group CEO Wu Yongming announced in an email to all employees the establishment of the alibaba e-commerce business group, appointing Jiang Fan as its head, reporting to Wu Yongming. The new e-commerce business group will comprehensively integrate Taobao Tmall Group, International Digital Business Group, as well as the e-commerce operations of 1688, Xianyu, etc., forming a business cluster covering the full industry chain at home and abroad.

After going around in circles, alibaba has completely handed over its core e-commerce operations to this 'alibaba prince'. Jiang Fan, born in the 1980s, has brought in a younger management team after Wu Yongming took office. He replaced the core management of Taotian at the end of last year with a team entirely made up of young talents, which also means that alibaba is fully entrusting e-commerce to the younger generation.

Bringing together domestic and foreign e-commerce into a coherent strategy demonstrates alibaba's recognition of Jiang Fan's capabilities and its expectations for him. alibaba is also set to enter the e-commerce era under Jiang Fan.

With a major reshuffle in the domestic e-commerce industry and the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, more challenges are posed to the e-commerce sector. In this context, Jiang Fan taking full control of e-commerce allows Wu Yongming to better focus on AI, which is a wise move.

After this round of integration, alibaba's domestic and overseas e-commerce business will work together to cope with the challenges posed by pdd holdings.

From Dai Shan to Wu Yongming, and now to Jiang Fan, after more than a year of severe turbulence and personnel changes, can alibaba's e-commerce truly reverse the competitive landscape of e-commerce and secure a place in the global market? Jiang Fan must take on this important responsibility and lead alibaba's e-commerce in this offense and defense battle.

Return

Jiang Fan's return has long been anticipated.

More than a year ago, there were rumors within Tao Tian that CEO Dai Shan would be replaced, and most people speculated that Jiang Fan, who was in charge of international business, would take over. However, unexpectedly, Wu Yongming took the position of CEO of Tao Tian Group, while also holding three core positions: CEO of alibaba Group, CEO of alibaba Cloud, and CEO of Tao Tian Group.

In retrospect, Wu Yongming's takeover of Tao Tian at that time was only a transition, and this position ultimately returned to Jiang Fan.

In a letter to all employees, Wu Yongming stated that the e-commerce landscape in china and globally is entering a new era, where global supply chain capabilities, fulfillment capabilities, and consumer service capabilities will determine the future competitive landscape.

To this end, alibaba's e-commerce business group will integrate all e-commerce resources within the group to unleash the capabilities built up over the years, servicing both domestic and global consumers while helping more small and medium-sized enterprises expand into domestic and overseas markets simultaneously.

Jiang Fan's performance in international business is the main reason he has received recognition from Wu Yongming and Jack Ma. Over the past three years, the international business managed by Jiang Fan has been the fastest-growing sector among the six major business sectors of Alibaba Group, and it has become the growth engine for the core business.

In July of last year, Jiang Fan, who had previously been removed from the list of Alibaba partners, reappeared on the partners' list, which means that his personal negative public opinion event is completely over. Returning to the Alibaba partners means he is beginning to return to the center of power in Alibaba.

From a business perspective, over the past year, Taobao and Tmall have gradually moved towards integration and connectivity with overseas e-commerce.

In July of this year, Taobao launched the "Global Free Shipping Plan for Apparel," leading apparel merchants to go overseas first, and invested 1 billion yuan to turn Hong Kong into a free shipping zone. In September, Taobao completely upgraded its overseas strategy to the "Taobao Tmall Overseas Growth Plan," expanding the outbound categories from apparel to the entire industry, launching comprehensive overseas expansion.

During the double eleven shopping festival, going overseas became a major highlight. According to Wall Street Insights, in the second phase of the promotion characterized by spot sales, Taobao's overseas business achieved strong growth, with nearly 0.07 million global free shipping merchants doubling their transaction volume year-on-year, especially in places like Hong Kong and Singapore where new customer scales doubled year-on-year.

In the process of Taobao going overseas, it has already collaborated with Alibaba International in terms of business synergy. From the perspective of division of labor, Taobao is responsible for supplier recruitment, while Alibaba overseas is responsible for consumer operation, validating that integration can bring more new growth.

In addition, 1688 and Xianyu, which originally belonged to Taobao, have also been incorporated into the Alibaba e-commerce business group, indicating Alibaba's emphasis on the e-commerce supply chain. After all, behind Taobao and 1688 are over ten million small and medium-sized enterprises, and the rich and high-quality supply they represent is highly competitive in the global market.

Since its launch in 2003, Taobao has undergone 21 years of development. Now, the integration of Taobao, Tmall, and international business into one cohesive strategy will undoubtedly bring new shocks to the e-commerce industry.

Focus

Connecting domestic and international e-commerce businesses is Alibaba's latest move in response to the domestic and international e-commerce situation. From Alibaba's strategic adjustment tone, this adjustment has a certain inevitability.

In September last year, Wu Yongming took over as CEO of Alibaba Group, clearly focusing on a "user-first, AI-driven" strategy. Two months later, he fully articulated Alibaba's strategic blueprint for a new development stage, with three important priority directions for the future: technology-driven internet platform business, AI-driven technology business, and global commercial network.

In a series of adjustments, Alibaba's strategy has increasingly focused. As stated in his all-staff letter, the e-commerce business and AI technology are the group's most critical development directions, which also determines Alibaba's future business chips.

Previously, Wu Yongming held multiple positions, overseeing both e-commerce and Alibaba Cloud's core businesses, which required significant energy and posed management challenges. Now, with Jiang Fan fully taking over e-commerce, Wu Yongming can better focus on AI business.

From a management perspective, after Wu Yongming took office, he also prefers to utilize a younger team. Insiders close to Alibaba believe that establishing an e-commerce business group and appointing Jiang Fan to be in charge aligns with Wu Yongming's proposed focus on core business strategy, as well as his idea of cultivating more young leaders.

Next, Wu Yongming and Jiang Fan will take on the roles of Alibaba's core business leaders, bearing Alibaba's mission in this new stage, completing the most significant strategic structural adjustment in Alibaba's history, and steering this giant ship into the AI channel.

Domestically, Taobao has stabilized its market share. On November 15, Alibaba released its Q2 fiscal 2025 earnings report, where Wu Yongming stated that in the recently concluded 2024 November 11 shopping festival related, Taobao and Tmall's GMV saw strong growth, with monthly transaction users reaching a historical high. However, how to quickly enhance monetization capabilities and narrow the gap between GMV and CMR is Taobao's focus moving forward.

Internationally, cross-border e-commerce is in a rapid growth phase of seizing market share. In the second quarter, alibaba's international digital business group revenue increased by 29% year-on-year to 31.672 billion yuan, continuing to grow at a high rate. The company mainly faces localization competitors and competition from domestic peers; moreover, how to implement domestic e-commerce infrastructure, supply chains, and service efficiencies abroad will be a significant endeavor.

For Jiang Fan, the key moving forward is to what extent the domestic and international businesses can be integrated, after all, the capabilities of the two foundations and the markets they face are different.

AI represents alibaba's future. Two months ago at the Yunqi Conference, Wu Yongming stated that the greatest imagination of generative AI is not about creating one or two new super apps on a mobile screen, but about taking over the digital world and changing the physical world.

In this all-staff letter, Wu Yongming stated that investments in AI will continue to increase, driving a productivity revolution powered by AI, improving AI infrastructure and supporting systems, and insisting on open source and openness. "Investment in AI product development will continue in the toB and toC fields to seize the opportunities of the AI era."

Although AI has a broad market space, it is still in its early stages, and there remains a significant gap between output and cost. Although alibaba cloud achieved a 7% growth in the second quarter, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of growth, it is still far from the core business of e-commerce.

After more than twenty years of development, alibaba is trying to shed its past burdens and enter the field light-footed. As Wu Yongming emphasized, the 25-year-old alibaba still needs to maintain an entrepreneurial mindset and continue to innovate.

Whether in e-commerce or AI, alibaba is facing an extremely complex global market, which also determines that for Wu Yongming and Jiang Fan to maintain and even recreate alibaba's former glory, they must continually solve problems; this will be an unprecedented fierce battle.