Chinese e-commerce big Alibaba plans to merge its restaurant evaluation enterprise (beforehand often called Koubei) with its AutoNavi map app, in accordance to a report by native media outlet LatePost on March 22.
Yu Yongfu, who’s a associate at Alibaba, in addition to the President of the corporate’s life service sector and the Chairman of AutoNavi, acknowledged that the organizational adjustments have been a technique to facilitate enterprise progress.
The determination to merge Alibaba‘s restaurant review business with AutoNavi was announced in a meeting on March 22. The meeting, which exceeded its planned duration of 45 minutes, did not address specific issues such as the course of the Koubei team after the merger or how Koubei-related business will be implemented by AutoNavi. In the upcoming quarter, AutoNavi and Koubei will explore how to integrate and determine the key direction of development after an initial run-in period. There have been no changes in stock holding or salary for Koubei’s group members in the meanwhile.
Koubei, a neighborhood way of life web site based in 2004 by former Alibaba worker Li Zhiguo, had an preliminary short-lived run. Alibaba acquired Koubei and merged it with Yahoo China and Taobao, however the platform failed to appeal to a big consumer base.
Following the failure of Koubei, Alibaba pursued different alternatives within the native way of life enterprise. In 2013, Lu Zhaoxi, then CEO of Alibaba, launched the restaurant and meals app “Taodiandian,” utilizing numerous “shopping festivals” to appeal to customers. However, the platform struggled to compete with rivals Meituan and Ele.me when it comes to the collection of retailers and high quality of service. As a consequence, Koubei was relaunched in 2015 with the aim of competing towards Meituan and serving to Alipay promote offline fee.
After Alibaba acquired the meals supply firm Ele.me, Koubei was relegated to a lesser position within the native way of life enterprise, primarily specializing in restaurant evaluations. In early 2022, LatePost reported that Koubei’s catering enterprise protection shrank from 40 cities to simply 11 cities.
Koubei has confronted challenges in its growth, whereas AutoNavi has skilled regular progress to develop into one in all Alibaba‘s most profitable companies lately.
At the Alibaba Investor Conference in late 2021, Yu expressed his perception that maps are the best software for navigating the true world. He expressed his hope that AutoNavi might be leveraged to allow customers to discover meals, clothes, housing, and transportation choices. This would come with not solely finding refueling and charging stations but in addition discovering eating places and reserving accommodations by way of the map characteristic.
After Koubei is merged into AutoNavi, there could also be elevated potential to experiment with further enterprise ventures. On March 21, Starbucks launched a brand-new retail channel in China referred to as “Starbucks Curbside” by way of its collaboration with AutoNavi, offering orders to clients on the go.
SEE ALSO: Starbucks Launches Curbside Service in China with AutoNavi
Koubei is at the moment going through intense competitors, with its greatest rival being Douyin, which boasts 700 million every day energetic customers. By investing extra assets into the native way of life enterprise, Alibaba is aiming to problem Meituan‘s dominance available in the market.
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