HONG KONG (AP) – China's Alibaba Group is focusing on e-commerce at its core, with CEO Eddie Wu looking to boost growth and fend off fast-growing online shopping rivals like Pinduoduo. He announced that he would be in charge of the business.
Wu will succeed Trudy Dai, one of Alibaba's founding employees and a longtime Alibaba executive.
Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai said in an internal letter Wednesday that Dai will help establish an asset management company aimed at improving return on capital and “enhancing shareholder value.”
The appointments come after PDD Holdings, which operates online shopping platform Pinduoduo and U.S.-focused e-commerce site Temu, surpassed Alibaba in market capitalization last month. .
As of Tuesday, the market capitalization of PDD's U.S.-listed shares was $199.41 billion. Alibaba had $191.75 billion.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma earlier this month praised PDD for being able to outgrow his Hangzhou-based company, which had long been China's biggest e-commerce player.
Tsai said in the letter that Alibaba needs a “completely new strategy” and a change in the company's organizational principles and systems to a “completely new environment.”
Following the announcement, Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares rose 3.5% in Wednesday trading.
The company reorganized its business in March, splitting it into six divisions that will eventually be self-funded and taken public. Alibaba's cloud unit was expected to be one of the first to make an initial public offering, but Alibaba later cited uncertainty over U.S. export restrictions on advanced chips used in artificial intelligence. , withdrew plans to spin off the business.
