Alibaba CEO Jack Ma told Information Times that eBay Eachnet's recent strategy of offering some of its services for free is too late to help Eachnet regain the market share it lost to Alibaba's Taobao.
Ma said that if Eachnet launched the free strategy 18 months ago, it would have been very difficult for Taobao to develop. However, Ma said that Taobao has surpassed Eachnet to become China's most popular C2C website. According to Ma, Taobao had 22 times as many registered users as eBay Eachnet before eBay Eachnet launched its free strategy and the gap has been widened to 24 times after Eachnet launched free services.
Ma said Alibaba will not seek to go public in 2006. Alibaba will focus development on domestic trade, which includes offering customer service in different dialects, in 2006, as opposed to its current focus on companies looking to export products. Ma said that 75 percent of Alibaba's paying users renew their contracts.
Ma said that if Eachnet launched the free strategy 18 months ago, it would have been very difficult for Taobao to develop. However, Ma said that Taobao has surpassed Eachnet to become China's most popular C2C website. According to Ma, Taobao had 22 times as many registered users as eBay Eachnet before eBay Eachnet launched its free strategy and the gap has been widened to 24 times after Eachnet launched free services.
Ma said Alibaba will not seek to go public in 2006. Alibaba will focus development on domestic trade, which includes offering customer service in different dialects, in 2006, as opposed to its current focus on companies looking to export products. Ma said that 75 percent of Alibaba's paying users renew their contracts.