Alibaba.com International Sees 65% Yearly Traffic Growth, Working on Multi-lingual Sites [Updated]

Update: The German version of Alibaba.com is actually up! Click here to explore around. On the top, you can actually see there are different language options, including Korean and Japanese.

When doing cost research on machine parts or looking to source electronics or clothes for sale overseas, Alibaba.com (HKG:1688) has to be one of the first places to search (I remember that when I was a student working on projects). Perhaps that is one of the many reasons why Alibaba.com has seen such huge traffic growth this quarter, according to its Q3 results, released today.

The company reported that its B2B overseas marketplace, Alibaba.com, saw a whopping year-on-year growth of 65 percent in daily average unique visitors in September. There are a total of 23.8 million registered users on Alibaba.com now. If you consider both China.Alibaba.com (its China-only marketplace) and Alibaba.com, the B2B e-commerce giant has recorded a total of 72.8 million users and 9.6 million storefronts up to Q3.

While user growth rate slows for its China marketplace — 3.7 percent growth in the last quarter in terms of registered users — Alibaba’s international site is gaining steam, seeing a 9.8 percent growth in registered users in the same time-frame. Plus the B2B e-commerce giant is looking to make its site available in more languages to enable buyers around the world to look for supplies easily. Currently, Alibaba.com is available only in Chinese and English.

So which languages/countries will be made available? An Alibaba.com spokeswoman revealed a few countries to us, including Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, France, Portugal, the UK, and Australia. She added, pointing specifically to the UK and Australia:

The UK and Australia sites are also not as advanced as Alibaba.com, but they are slightly more advanced than the other multi-language sites and are also slightly localized to fit their respective target markets.

The UK and Australia sites are customized version of Alibaba.com. So the backend will follow Alibaba.com.

All in all, it is good news for suppliers on Alibaba.com as their stores will soon be able to reach some non-English and non-Chinese speakers.