Alibaba’s Daniel Zhang launches restructuring hot on the heels of US$30.8bn Singles’ Day record

The reorganisation highlights the increasing importance that Alibaba is placing on its cloud, cross-border e-commerce and New Retail businesses

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Daniel Zhang Yong, chief executive of Alibaba Group Holding, talks to the media during the company’s Tmall 11.11 Global Shopping Festival in Shanghai on November 11. Photo: SCMP

Published: 2:15pm, 26 Nov 2018Updated: 11:10pm, 26 Nov 2018

Alibaba Group Holding chief executive Daniel Zhang Yong on Monday announced that the company would be restructuring its Tmall e-commerce business and upgrading its Alibaba Cloud business unit as they become more strategically important.

As part of the reorganisation, Tmall will now include the e-commerce platform, Tmall Supermarket, and Tmall’s import and export business, according to the statement posted on Alibaba’s official Weibo account. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.

The renamed Alibaba Cloud Intelligence business group will now be overseen by Alibaba chief technology officer Jeff Zhang Jianfeng, who will also serve as its president, replacing Simon Hu Xiaoming. A New Retail technology business group will also be set up, to be overseen by Wu Zeming.

The Alibaba Cloud Intelligence platforms are part of a strategy to establish smart technology infrastructure for the digital economy era, the company said in its statement.

The restructuring comes hot on the heels of a record-breaking US$30.8 billion Singles’ Day earlier this month and is the first significant reorganisation by Zhang since he was named chairman-designate. Alibaba co-founder and executive chairman Jack Ma will step down next September and hand over the reins to Zhang.