Jack Ma says Alibaba is not going to ‘invade’ America

Alibaba is not going to “invade” America and take on Amazon, Jack Ma said this week. In a speech Tuesday at The Economic Club of New York, he explained how Alibaba operates and how the Chinese ecommerce titan – which IPO’d in the US last summer – differs from its global, not-quite-rivals.

In a section of his speech, Ma said that he is often asked when his company is going to enter the US market (hat-tip to Alibaba’s Alizila blog for spotting this). He went on:

“When are you going to come to invade America? When are you going to compete with Amazon? When are you going to compete with eBay? Well, we show great respect to eBay and Amazon. But, I think the opportunity – and the strategy – for us is helping small businesses in America go to China, sell their products in China.”

Half a billion middle class shoppers

Ma backed this up by saying that China’s middle class is almost the same size as America’s entire population, meaning it makes sense that Alibaba focuses on its Taobao and Tmall marketplaces – on which Alibaba makes most of its money – and Chinese consumers.

“We think in 10 years, more than half [a] billion Chinese people will be middle class,” he added.

He then called for America’s small businesses to use the web to sell to Chinese consumers.

It’s something that Ma has been talking about since at least 2013 when Tmall experimented with a special promotion that allowed smaller US firms to sell fresh foods – like Alaskan salmon – directly to Chinese consumers. That has since expanded to cover more food stuffs. A variety of small businesses from around the world also use Taobao and Tmall to reach the China market.

In his New York speech, Ma gave the example of the popularity of Seattle cherries with Alibaba’s shoppers. During the first 24 hours of sales of the cherries, 80,000 Chinese people snapped up the product. Last year, he said, Alibaba’s customers bought 300 tons of Seattle cherries.

Ma’s words seem designed to fend off American unease over Alibaba’s intentions. Late last year, a political attack ad aimed squarely at Alibaba claimed that the “Chinese company will decimate our local retailers.” The attack ad was funded by a group that includes retailers like Best Buy, Target, and JC Penney.

While Ma seems keen to play down Alibaba’s US ambitions, the company does have a US-oriented marketplace in the form of 11Main, which quietly launched last summer.

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