Alibaba Group Announces Official Launch of Tmall World

Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) announced today as part of its globalization strategy the official launch of Tmall World, which aims to connect the 100 million-strong overseas Chinese market worldwide with 1.2 billion products offered by brands and merchants through the Group’s flagship social commerce app Mobile Taobao and online platforms such as world.taobao.com.

In order to help merchants and brands on Alibaba’s platforms to seamlessly extend to the global Chinese market, Alibaba will provide end-to-end solutions including logistics, payment, and localization support catering to each local market needs.

The priority markets to come under the program are Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia where the Group has already announced the kick-off of Tmall 6.18 Mid-Year Mega Sale. The three-day shopping festival, running from June 18-20, will offer discounts totaling RMB10 billion to Mainland China and overseas customers.

In Hong Kong, where Tmall is already a household name, Alibaba will expand the product categories, adding Tmall Supermarket to the existing local offering. Singapore and Malaysia have been included in the priority markets to offer Tmall World because of their sizeable Chinese population and the popularity of Taobao and Tmall with local users who want an online shopping experience with a Chinese-language interface.

Chinese users in these markets will be able to use the platforms they are familiar with to access Tmall and all other Alibaba marketplaces via personal computers or mobile devices and enjoy logistics, payment and other services and offers tailored to their individual market needs.

As a part of Alibaba’s globalization strategy, Alibaba made a majority investment in Lazada Group, the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, which recently launched Taobao Collection in Singapore and Malaysia to cater to local populations that don’t speak Chinese. Taobao Collection offers a wide range of curated products from electronics accessories, fashion to home and living from Taobao and Alibaba’s other marketplaces while providing customers with an end-to-end Lazada user experience throughout from shopping to payment to logistics.