Alibaba opens regional HQ in Melbourne

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has become the latest major technology company to establish its regional headquarters in Melbourne.

The new Melbourne office will serve as Alibaba’s headquarters for Australia and New Zealand in a move expected to make it easier for local businesses to access China’s massive e-commerce market.

IBIS World last year estimated that China’s e-commerce market is worth over $779 billion per year and is expected to grow by more than 22% annually through to 2021.

Alibaba was founded in 1999 and has grown to become one of the world’s largest business-to-consumer and business-to-business e-commerce companies. The company had gross annual sales of US$462 billion ($602.4 billion) in 2015.

Alibaba also offers cloud infrastructure services under the Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun in China) brand name, competing with providers such as Amazon Web Services, as well as online payment platform Alipay and other services.

The opening of the new headquarters follows the establishment of a partnership established by the Victorian Government between Alibaba and Australia Post aimed at providing local companies with easier access to the Chinese market.

The partnership involved helping Australian businesses sell their products across Alibaba’s key platforms, which included opening an online shopfront on Alibaba’s Tmall business-to-consumer e-commerce marketplace.

Australia Post separately announced that its partnership with Alibaba has been expanded beyond China to also cover Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Australia Post will establish branded storefronts on Alibaba’s majority-owned subsidiary Lazada, Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce network. Lazada has more than 560 million users across six countries.

“We are committed to supporting local Australian businesses and delivering e-commerce solutions that make it easier to grow their businesses whether that be across Australia or overseas,” Australia Post Executive Manager for Parcels and StarTrack CEO Bob Black said.

“International expansion can be daunting for many businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. That’s why we are proud to have partnered with Alibaba to help give Australian businesses access to the booming e-commerce sector in China and now the lucrative Southeast Asian market.”

Image courtesy of Daniel Cukier under CC

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