| Acquired by | Yahoo! |
| Price | $1B |
| Date | 8/05 |
| Terms | Cash and Stock |
| Website | alibaba.com |
| Category | eCommerce |
| Employees | |
| Founded | 6/99 |
| UCWEB Technology | 6/09 |
Alibaba.com is a B2B e-commerce company. Alibaba’s primary business is to serve as a directory of Chinese manufacturers connecting them to other companies around the world looking for suppliers. According to iResearch, it was the largest online B2B company in China in 2006 based on the number of registered users and market share in China by revenue.
They operate two marketplaces; the first is an international marketplace based in English tailored to global importers and exporters in China; the second is a Chinese marketplace that focuses on suppliers and buyers trading domestically in China.
Yahoo is currently a 40% share holder in the parent Alibaba Group. Alibaba is on track to go public on November 6, 2007: they plan to raise $1.5 billion making it the second-biggest Internet IPO ever, after Google’s $1.9 billion offering in 2004. The IPO will value Alibaba.com at up to $7.8 billion.
Competitors include Jeff Bezos-backed manufacturing marketplace MFG.com, Global Sources.com, TradeKey.com and RSS.
In the end of 2008, Alibaba launched B2B sites in 6 non-English language versions, which help native traders source products online easily. The sites are:
Spanish: http://spanish.alibaba.com/
German: http://german.alibaba.com/
Italian: http://italian.alibaba.com/
French: http://french.alibaba.com/
Portuguese: http://portuguese.alibaba.com/
Russian: http://russian.alibaba.com/
