Alibaba continues to invest in Southeast Asia

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s (BABA) investment in Southeast Asia takes another leap. The tech giant, which is planning for a stock listing in China, has apparently approached the Thai government with its plan of building a logistics center in the Thailand. This initiative gets the company a step closer to its founder Jack Ma’s vision of supporting small businesses, particularly to benefit from the global trade.

E-commerce has grown expeditiously In Southeast Asia. The obsession among Chinese tech giants basically increased after Alibaba’s rival JD planned to set up a $500 million venture in Thailand and Amazon (AMZN) launched its services in Singapore. Reports suggest that Alibaba is eying to set up its logistics center in Chachoengsao, central Thailand.

Alibaba is one of those companies that aim at aggressively expanding its footprint into the Southeast Asian regions. Basically, Southeast region is viewed as a lucrative market mainly for the e-commerce companies as it is a home to millions of first-generation internet users who favor online shopping.

Recent reports by We Are Social and Hootsuite suggest that as of January 2018 there were nearly 370 million active internet users, with a majority of them using their mobile devices to shop online.

The Chinese e-commerce and tech company is competing on a global scale against its rivals and has successfully established a strong presence many sectors. The rival of JD and Tencent has not only made huge profits but has also spent billions in investments. The company is serious about its investments and in fact, has doubled its bet in the ongoing battle for Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market.

Recently, Alibaba invested another $2 billion in Lazada Group, a Singapore based e-commerce company. The company had initially gained control over Lazada in 2016 with an initial investment of $1 billion. Last year, the company disclosed its plan of setting up a regional logistics hub in Malaysia.

By attaining a market value of $527 billion, the company was ranked as the second Asian company in January 2018 to have exceeded the $500 billion valuation after Tencent. As the company expands globally, it will be interesting to track the company’s progress.