Business Giants: 5 Unique Facts About Ali Baba Every Investor Should Know

In September of 2104, Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company went public, and was the most significant US IPO, raising nearly 22 billion dollars. Alibaba’s plunge into the U.S. stock market made a huge splash and might even produce some exciting developments in the technology sector. Here are five unique facts about Alibaba that every investor should know.

It Was Founded in 1999

Jack Ma is currently the chairman of the company that he started in his apartment in 1999 and employed 18 workers initially. Ma flunked math in school, as well as his college entrance exams, and wasn’t even able to secure a job at the local KFC. He went from being a poor English teacher with a salary of just $15 a month to one of the top 35 wealthiest people in the world, according to information provided by The Guardian. Even with his confessed minimal knowledge of technology, Ma hopes that his company will endure for at least 102 years so that it will a company that has spanned three different centuries.

Alibaba is the Largest e-Commerce Business in China

Alibaba’s popularity is phenomenal. It currently handles more than 80 percent of China’s e-commerce business, making it larger than eBay. Its original workforce of 18 employees has exploded, and now the company employs more than 22,000 people and has more than 100 offices located throughout China. The company could very well be worth more than $150 billion U.S. dollars, and the Alibaba stock price currently sits at $143 and continues to rise. In 2013, nearly 250 billion dollars flowed through Alibaba’s system, which is more than twice as much as Amazon.

They are Responsible for 60% of the Packages Delivered in China

Alibaba owns many websites that all have different functions, from cloud services, consumer-to-consumer e-commerce, and mobile apps to name a few. These sites have helped boost the packing and shipping industries in China. The site has 601 million shoppers, according to statistics found on DMR, and 60 percent of all the packages that are sent out in China are sent through one of these many sites. It is being predicted that Chinese e-commerce will quickly surpass that of Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, and France, combined.

Alibaba is Going After the Mobile Device Industry

If Alibaba wants to thrive in China’s fast-developing retail technology infrastructure, it will be necessary for the company to stay forward thinking and nimble as possible in the mobile spaces. This is because more consumers than ever are using their mobile phones to make purchases. In 2012, Alibaba released their mobile OS called Aliyun, and more than one million mobile devices received the new operating system. The company is hoping that the new OS will become the “Android of China.”

Represents the Developing Chinese Economy

Over the last several years, China’s economy has begun to gain momentum. The business operates differently in China because of their poor retail infrastructure. The country doesn’t have a lot of competitors, so Alibaba’s success might not translate to other parts of the world. The company will need to find a way to adjust its business model accordingly.