Who Are The Competitors Of Alibaba In China? (Listed & Explained!)

The top competitors of Alibaba include Jingdong, Tencent, Sina, Amazon, Walmart, Flipcart, and Rakuten. They are the major competitors of Alibaba in China and outside China. 

Key Takeaways

• JD.com is based out of Beijing, China and it boasts an $82.8 billion revenue turnover last year
• Tencent has more than 800 subsidiaries and operates in sectors ranging from social media to instant messaging platforms
• Sina competes against Alibaba in the digital media and entertainment segment
• Amazon provides a platform for buyers and sellers to connect directly and it is considered as the biggest competitor of Alibaba

Top 7 Competitors Of Alibaba (Within China & Outside China!) 

Here is an in-depth detail of Alibaba’s top seven competitors:

Jingdong (JD.com) 

JD.com is an online shopping platform that specializes in hosting and dealing with merchants, businesses, customers, and other related services in the e-commerce field. It was founded by Richard Liu as ‘Jingdong Century Trading Co.’ with a humble beginning as an electronics business back in 1998 before venturing further into e-commerce territory – which proved to be highly successful for JD.com thus far! As of 2019, JD.com boasts a $82.8 billion revenue turnover and employs 220,000 people to help manage all of those massive numbers. The company itself is based out of Beijing, China where it happily resides for the time being!

JD.com expands in an increasingly competitive market when one considers that Alibaba is still catching up to its dominant competitor, JD.com. Just today in news, it was reported that Alibaba is to launch the T-Mall app on JD’s platform, so at least for now it seems as though there’ll be a healthy balance between these two China competitors who are valued and growing rapidly.

Tencent

Tencent’s headquarters are located in Shenzhen, China. It has more than 800 subsidiaries and operates in sectors ranging from social media to instant messaging platforms. Tencent was named the second-largest video game company in the world by sales revenue. The WeChat messaging platform had over 1 billion registered users in 2018.

Evidently, Tencent and Alibaba are giants in the Chinese tech space. In fact, they have a digital marketplace that boasts more than 800 million users. Both companies have their eyes on dominating the rest of the world. But Tencent is slightly ahead of its competitor Alibaba this year — it outdid Alibaba by earning $33 billion through sales, while it earned a total of $24 billion.

Sina

Sina got its start as an online media company in 1998 when it was founded by Zhidong, Yan, Ben Tsiang, and Hurst Lin. It got a big boost in 2003 with the advent of SINA Weibo, an online social media platform that generates the bulk of their income to this day. More recently it has diversified into other related fields including communication and entertainment. Sina’s services are available in various languages. The company’s headquarters are located in Shanghai with more than 63,400 people employed by the company globally.

Sina competes against Alibaba in the digital media and entertainment segment. Sina is a popular platform while Alibaba offers a range of services which include e-commerce, cloud computing, TMall, Taobao Marketplace and more.

Amazon

Amazon is one of the best online retailers in the business. It was established during the year 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Amazon initially started out as an online bookstore but then converted into a top online retailer worldwide with a strong base of loyal customers who repeatedly purchase from the online retailer. Currently, Amazon has a strong base of loyal customers who purchase frequently from the Amazon eco-system.

Amazon, as we all know, was originally founded on the basis of doing business in books and gradually grew over time into many other product groups. It now sells almost anything from toys to cell phones, clothing and housewares to jewelry. Basically it has become a strong e-commerce giant which sells practically everything imaginable! 

Amazon is a true online giant handling millions upon millions of transactions every day and using more than enough resources and manpower to keep itself going. Always remember to stay positive when you face obstacles because no matter how tough things may seem right now there is always a way around it provided you’re willing to try!

Amazon provides a platform for buyers and sellers to connect directly, with Amazon taking care of shipping most of the time. Amazon is great because it offers various ways of purchasing from the website, including credit card and paypal. Due to this reason, it is considered to be a competitor of Alibaba.

Walmart

Walmart is an American chain of retail stores with over 11,000 locations in 28 different countries around the world. Walmart also operates an online shopping website that caters to customers who prefer to shop from the comfort of their own home, called walmart.com. One of Walmart’s main focuses is on providing low prices for their products, which makes their website a popular choice for many customers who are looking for deals.

They have a frequent buyer program where you can get free Walmart gift cards, which you can use in any Walmart store. People are able to monitor all their orders online using their own website. Walmart has grown to become one of the largest companies in existence, and it’s quickly gaining ground on Alibaba itself when it comes to international markets!

Flipkart

Based in Bengaluru, India, Flipkart was founded by two former Amazon employees Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal. The Indian eCommerce company started with books before they expanded into consumer electronics, fashion, groceries, home essentials and lifestyle products. With over 100 million registered users and 80 million products available to purchase on the platform Flipkart is the largest e-commerce company in India. In 2018 Walmart acquired an 80% stake in the company for $16 billion. The company currently has about 30,000 employees and posts a revenue turnover of $6.1 billion annually as of 2019.

There are many companies who have started out with big dreams but haven’t really put their best foot forward when it comes to execution. We’ve found that Flipkart, much like a number of companies who initially launched an operation in the e-commerce field more than a decade ago and have since become some of the best competitors in the market, is trying their very hardest to make an impact on not just India’s economy but other neighboring countries as well.

Rakuten

There are many online shopping brands on the internet. But one of the most famous is Rakuten which was founded in 1997 by Hiroshi Mikitani. It has its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. It also operates globally, with a presence in over 30 countries and 1.4 million registered members. The company posted a revenue turnover of $11.1 billion in 2019, generating income from its e-commerce platform as well as other ventures such as communications, digital content and financial technology services. Rakuten employs 17,214 people worldwide. 

Rakuten is one of the top e-commerce giants in Japan. But it doesn’t hold a candle to Alibaba, a similar e-commerce giant in China. In fact, Alibaba often comes out on top as having bigger revenue than Rakuten. Rakuten lacks another key ingredient that Alibaba has up its sleeve​ – membership-based platform benefits that give members special privileges and perks.

Conclusion

The e-commerce marketplace is a growing trend for modern consumers. New platforms are being introduced to offer convenient shopping for individuals worldwide in order to make purchases across the globe. Alibaba, taking note of the growing demand for online shopping, has introduced many technologically advanced methods of purchase through the use of apps or other Internet-enabled devices and is making efforts to meet their customers needs by continually developing this technology.

References:

https://www.marketing91.com/top-10-alibaba-competitors/
https://www.owler.com/company/alibabagroup

Last Updated on November 8, 2022 by Magalie D.