阿里巴巴追加投資東南亞電商集團大綱

Alibaba is pumping another $1bn into Lazada, taking its stake in the Southeast Asia ecommerce group to 83 per cent and doubling its bet on one of the fastest-growing — and most fragmented — markets for online shopping.

阿里巴巴(Alibaba)正要向Lazada再投入10億美元，將其在這家東南亞電商集團所持的股份增至83%，加倍押注於增長最快——也是最碎片化的——在線購物市場之一。

The move by the Chinese tech giant comes as Lazada’s rival Sea, formerly known as Garena and backed by Alibaba rival Tencent, is seeking to establish itself as the region’s dominant technology platform. Sea, valued at $3.75bn in March, last month raised $550m from investors and has filed for a US listing.

這家中國科技巨擘採取此舉之際，Lazada的競爭對手Sea——原名Garena，受到阿里巴巴的競爭對手騰訊(Tencent)支持——正尋求把自己確立爲該地區的主導技術平臺。今年3月份時估值達到37.5億美元的Sea，上月從投資者處籌集到5.5億美元，並已申請在美國上市。

Alibaba, which runs China’s biggest ecommerce platforms, made its first move on Lazada in April last year, paying $1bn for a 51 per cent stake. It bought some new shares and partly replaced European investors Rocket Internet, the Berlin-based start-up incubator, and Tesco, the UK supermarket chain, which each sold down significant stakes. Lazada at that time was valued at $1.5bn.

運營中國最大電商平臺的阿里巴巴，去年4月首次投資Lazada，斥資10億美元購得51%股份。它購買了一些新股，同時部分取代了兩家歐洲投資者：總部位於柏林的初創企業孵化器Rocket Internet和英國超市連鎖樂購(Tesco)，這兩家都減持了可觀股份。那時Lazada的估值爲15億美元。

The latest deal sees Alibaba pay the same amount for a 32 per cent stake — of a bigger share base — and values Lazada at $3.15bn, according to the Chinese group.

據阿里巴巴介紹，最新交易意味着這家中資集團將支付相同金額購入32%股份（股票基礎有所擴大），並使Lazada的估值達到31.5億美元。

Lazada hosts more than 100,000 local and international sellers selling to 560m consumers.

Lazada擁有逾10萬家當地和國際賣家，面向5.6億消費者銷售。

“The ecommerce markets in [Southeast Asia] are still relatively untapped, and we see a very positive upward trajectory ahead of us. We will continue to put our resources to work in Southeast Asia through Lazada to capture these growth opportunities,” said Daniel Zhang, chief executive of Alibaba.

“（東南亞的）電子商務市場仍然相對未開發，我們面對一個非常積極的上升軌跡。我們將繼續通過Lazada將資源投入到東南亞，使其發揮作用，抓住這些增長機遇，”阿里巴巴首席執行官張勇(Daniel Zhang)表示。

Alibaba has so far concentrated its globalisation efforts in Asia, where it has invested in PayTM of India and into the payment group’s ecommerce unit. That business was last year spun out of PayTM, which is best known for running India’s most popular digital payments platform.

阿里巴巴迄今將全球化努力集中在亞洲，該公司已投資於印度的PayTM以及這家支付集團的電商部門。那塊業務去年從PayTM分拆出來；PayTM以運行印度人氣最高的數字支付平臺而聞名。

Southeast Asia is rapidly shaping up as a battleground for both the Chinese players and multinationals like Google and Facebook. The region has 200m digital consumers buying goods or products online, according to Bain & Co, the consultancy, up from 130m the previous year.

東南亞正迅速成爲中資企業以及谷歌(Google)和Facebook等跨國公司的戰場。據諮詢公司貝恩(Bain & Co)介紹，該地區有2億數字消費者在線購物，高於去年的1.3億。

It is the world’s fastest growing region in terms of internet users, according to joint research by Google and Singapore’s Temasek last year, which estimated that the internet economy in the region will be worth $200bn by 2025.

根據谷歌和新加坡淡馬錫(Temasek)去年聯合進行的研究，就互聯網用戶人數而言，東南亞是世界增長最快的地區。該項研究估計，到2025年該地區的互聯網經濟將達到2000億美元規模。

However, the market is also highly fragmented. While Lazada and Sea’s Shopee ecommerce site dominate, there are scores of other players with local footholds, including Tokopedia in Indonesia and Kaidee in Thailand.

但是，這個市場也高度碎片化。雖然Lazada以及Sea旗下Shopee電子商務網站佔據主導地位，但還有其他數十個立足於本地的競爭者，包括印度尼西亞的Tokopedia和泰國的Kaidee。