China’s Alibaba Sets $100B GMV Target

Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba has set a $100 billion gross merchandise volume target for Lazada, its southeast Asian online marketplace.

As Reuters reported Friday (Dec. 17), the company shared this goal with investors this week and sets the bar fairly high for Alibaba, as Lazada generated $21 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) between September 2020 and September 2021.

Meanwhile, Sea Ltd’s Shopee, the leading eCommerce retailer in the region, saw a GMV of $35.4 billion for the entire 2020 calendar year.

As PYMNTS reported in early 2021, Shopee enjoyed a robust expansion in Vietnam during the pandemic, seeing an 80% increase in its visitor volume.

The company’s parent, Sea, pushed into a space once dominated by companies like Grab. Lazada, in turn, began working with Grab to help it boost its eCommerce focus, using its services for customer and driver networks and pointing users to Grab’s food delivery service.

Read more: Alibaba And Shopee Face Off In Vietnam’s Marketplace Showdown

Alibaba says Lazada is in the third place position in Southeast Asia, after Shoppee and Mercado Libre. In addition to its GMV target, the company also hopes to ramp its user base up to 300 million people, nearly double the current rate.

Earlier this month, PYMNTS reported on a slew of changes, including increased competition, a stagnant economy and ongoing regulatory problems, that have led Alibaba to rework its eCommerce business and name a new chief financial officer.

See also: Alibaba Reorganizes its Global, Domestic eCommerce Business

The company has split its eCommerce division into two new components — international digital commerce and China digital commerce — in an effort to become more agile and boost its efforts to expand.

Jiang Fan, who headed the Alibaba’s central retail marketplaces in China, took over the international digital commerce unit, which includes AliExpress, Lazada and Alibaba.com.

While AliExpress chiefly sells to retail buyers in Europe and South America, Lazada and Alibaba.com focus on global business clients.