Alibaba Splits Taobao into Three Separate Entities

Posted by Joachim Bartels | Jun 17, 2011 | Alibaba, China, E-Commerce, Search & Aggregation, Taobao, Taobao.com | 0 |

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd reorganized its online retail unit Taobao into three separate companies, to be able to better respond to competition. Taobao has recently lost market share in online retail transactions, falling from 75% market share a year ago to 71.6% in the first quarter of this year according to Analysys.

Taobao will be split into ‘Taobao Mall’, which enables businesses to sell to customers, ‘Taobao Marketplace’ where consumers trade with each other, and the shopping-related search engine ‘eTao’.

The three companies will have their own management and will operate as wholly owned subsidiaries under Alibaba Group. Taobao started as a marketplace for consumers to buy and sell goods to each other. It has 370 million registered members.

Source: China Daily

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