China’s Alibaba is doubling down on Lazada, pouring in a further $2bn and installing one of its top brass as chief executive, relegating the south-east Asian ecommerce company’s founder to an advisory role.
The move comes as the battle for the south-east Asian market heats up, as global players including Amazon and Google thrash it out with China’s tech titans and domestic players such as Sea.
It also mirrors Alibaba’s tightening grip on Cainiao. In September Alibaba ploughed an extra $807m into its logistics network to lift its stake from 47 per cent to 51 per cent and pledged to invest another Rmb100bn ($15.2bn) over the following five years. Cainiao and Lazada are both lossmaking