Small entrepreneurs in China are easily finding a global market, thanks to the growing influence of Alibaba.com, the Chinese e-commerce company. The success of this business-to-business website is the most visible sign of the opportunities the internet is offering to entrepreneurs. Such has become the success story of Alibaba.com that on Tuesday 6 November it has listed its share in the Hong Kong stock exchange in the largest internet initial public offering since Google in 2004.
Alibaba.com is part of the larger internet company the Alibaba Group was founded by an English teacher Jack Ma in 1999. The stratospheric success of Alibaba.com can be gauged from the fact that it has raised $1.5 billion from investors for the IPO. Of the total money raised, Sunnyvale’s Yahoo and San Jose’s Cisco Systems have contributed $100million and $17.5 million respectively.
With over 162 million internet users, which is just a fraction of the 1.3 billion Chinese populations it will not be long when China would become the country with the world’s largest internet users. China is fast emerging as the manufacturing arm of the world with millions of small and midsize factories churning out products ranging from handbags, toys to electronics Alibaba will provide a global market for the products.
Alibaba.com helps the companies publish a company profile or as Alibaba.com calls it ‘an online storefront’. Companies worldwide are able to find low cost manufacturing partners from the site.
During the first half of this year, Alibaba.com made nearly$130 million in revenue.
Source:sfgate
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