Alibaba Group

• 1. Introduction

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  Alibaba Group was founded on the 28th of June 1999, not in a gleaming office tower, but in a Hangzhou apartment. Jack Ma gathered 17 friends and students around him that day, and together they launched a business-to-business marketplace called Alibaba.com. The name came from a character in the Middle Eastern folk-tale collection One Thousand and One Nights, chosen for its universal appeal. What began as a modest website connecting Chinese suppliers with global buyers would, within fifteen years, execute the largest initial public offering in world history. How did a company born in an apartment become one of the ten most valuable corporations on earth? What did it have to fight to get there, who tried to stop it, and what happened when its own government turned against it?

• 2. The Battle for China

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  When eBay announced its expansion into China in 2003, Jack Ma responded not by adapting Alibaba's existing platform but by building an entirely new one. Taobao launched that same year as a subsidiary, and its strategy was deliberate: free registration, commission-free transactions, and a free third-party payment platform to build trust. Advertising made up three-quarters of Taobao's total revenue, letting the platform break even in 2009 without charging sellers a cent. By 2007 Taobao had surpassed eBay in the Chinese market, and eBay eventually closed its unprofitable China web unit. In 2010 Taobao's profit was estimated at roughly 1.5 billion yuan, which was only about 0.4 percent of its total sales of 400 billion yuan that year, well below the industry average of two percent. Between 2011 and 2013, the number of stores on Taobao with annual sales over one million yuan increased by 33 percent, while smaller stores also multiplied rapidly.

• 3. The IPO That Rewrote History

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  On the 5th of September 2014, Alibaba set a price range of US$60 to $66 per share for its scheduled initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Two weeks later, on the 18th of September, the IPO priced at US$68. It raised US$25 billion for the company and its investors, a sum that surpassed the combined IPOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter. The deal gave Alibaba a market value of US$231 billion. By January 2018, that valuation had crossed US$500 billion, making Alibaba only the second Asian company to reach that mark after its competitor Tencent. The company's trajectory was not without friction: investors who purchased Alibaba's American depositary shares sued the company in a consolidated class action in 2015, alleging violations of the Securities Act. Alibaba reached a settlement in December 2018 and agreed to pay $75 million.

• 4. The Scandal Inside the Machine

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  Alibaba's Gold Supplier membership program was designed to signal trustworthiness. Sellers who paid for the designation would have their status verified and displayed publicly. In February 2011, Alibaba's corporate office admitted it had granted the mark of integrity to at least 2,000 dealers who had subsequently defrauded buyers. The company's share price dropped sharply after the announcement. Yan Limin, the general manager of Alibaba.com at the time, was dismissed in March for misconduct. A further 28 employees were reported to have been involved in irregular dealings. The Economist noted that Alibaba's public response carried conflicting signals: the company insisted its corrective actions showed commitment to quality, while critics argued the scandal threatened the entire subscription-driven verification model. Jack Ma was described as having been furious over the episode, and he moved personally to rebuild buyer trust.

• 5. Alipay and the Money Revolution

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  In 2004, before third-party payment was even fully legal in China, Alibaba launched Alipay. The platform offered an escrow service: buyers could confirm they were satisfied with their goods before the money was released to the seller. As Alipay's user base grew, Chinese regulators followed its lead, and in 2010 the People's Bank of China issued administrative measures that retroactively recognised the legal status of online third-party payment platforms. Alibaba spun off Alipay in 2010 in a move that drew controversy, and in 2011 Alipay became one of the first licensed non-financial institutions authorised to conduct payment operations. By February 2014 it held the largest market share in China with 300 million users and controlled just under half of the country's online payment market. In 2013 Alipay launched Yu'ebao, an online money market account offering higher interest rates than banks, which promptly became China's largest such fund. By 2018, the Alipay parent entity, renamed Ant Group, was the world's most valuable fintech company, with a valuation of US$150 billion.

• 6. When Beijing Pushed Back

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  In November 2020, Chinese leader Xi Jinping blocked the Ant Group IPO, which had been valued at US$200 billion. Economist Bo Zhuang described the block as part of broader government scrutiny of finance and technology companies. Within weeks, China's State Administration for Market Regulation opened a formal antitrust investigation into Alibaba itself, and the country's central bank summoned Ant Group for discussions about competition and consumer rights. The official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, People's Daily, endorsed the investigation, framing it as an important step in strengthening antitrust oversight online. By the end of December 2020 Alibaba's market capitalisation had fallen from roughly $859 billion to roughly $586 billion. Jack Ma, co-founder of both Alibaba and Ant Group, vanished from public view after Ant's IPO was suspended in early November. He reappeared in January 2021 in a 50-second video appearing briefly via video link at the digitally facilitated Rural Teacher Initiative. On the 9th of April 2021, the SAMR issued a fine of US$2.8 billion against Alibaba for anti-competitive practices, equivalent to 12 percent of its 2020 net profit, and ordered the company to file self-examination and compliance reports for three years. Alibaba accepted the fine without appeal.

• 7. Restructuring and What Comes Next

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  In March 2023, Alibaba announced what it called its "1+6+N" restructuring plan, splitting the company into six independently run entities: Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao and Tmall Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network, Local Services Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce, and the Digital Media and Entertainment Group. Each unit received its own CEO, its own board of directors, and the ability to seek its own fundraising and public listings. The Wall Street Journal reported on the 30th of March that Jack Ma had engineered the plan in talks with CEO Daniel Zhang while overseas. That same month Ma made a public appearance in Hangzhou, meeting with students and teachers at the Alibaba partners-funded Yungu School. In September 2023, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network filed for a Hong Kong initial public offering, potentially becoming the first of the six units to go public. In November 2025, the Financial Times published a report stating that a United States national security memo accused Alibaba of providing capabilities to China's People's Liberation Army used to target the United States. Alibaba disputed the claims. In January 2026, Texas governor Greg Abbott prohibited Alibaba products and services on all Texas government devices and networks.