NYSE: BABA HKEX: 9 988 (HKD Counter) 89988 (RMB Counter) Alibaba Group Holding Limited Fiscal Year Annual Report 2023
Drive Progress through Transformation for Our Future Contents 2 Our Mission 3 Our Vision 5 Our Values 6 Our Vibrant Culture and People 8 Key Events in Fiscal Year 2023 10 Letter from our Chairman and CEO 15 Business Overview 95 Management Discussion and Analysis 149 Directors, Senior Management and Employees 169 Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions 185 Other Information for Shareholders 199 Exemptions and Waivers 201 Risk Factors 265 Definitions 273 Financial Statements 364 Further Information
2 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Our founders started our company to champion small businesses, in the belief that the Internet would level the playing field by enabling small enterprises to leverage innovation and technology to grow and compete more effectively in domestic and global economies. We believe that concentrating on customer needs and solving their problems – whether those customers are consumers, merchants or enterprises – ultimately will lead to the best outcome for our business. In the digital era, we are staying true to our mission by helping our customers and business partners harness the power of digital technology. We have developed a large ecosystem powered by technology infrastructure that enables participants to create and share value on our platforms. Our decisions are guided by how they serve our mission over the long term, not by the pursuit of short-term gains. To make it easy to do business anywhere Our Mission
For a company that was founded in 1999, lasting for 102 years means we will have spanned three centuries, an achievement that few companies can claim. Our culture, business models and systems are built to last, so that we can achieve sustainability in the long run. We are proactively transforming our organization through a new organizational and governance structure to strengthen the competitiveness of our businesses through greater independence to address the evolving needs of different customers and capture new opportunities. We believe this transformation will help us achieve our longterm vision of serving a global consumer base, enabling more businesses to become profitable and creating more jobs. We do not pursue size or power; we aspire to be a good company that will last for 102 years. Years Our Vision 3 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report
We aim to build the future infrastructure of commerce. We envision that our customers will meet, work and live at Alibaba, and that we will be a good company that lasts for 102 years. We empower our customers with the fundamental infrastructure for commerce and new technology, so that they can build businesses and create value that can be shared among our ecosystem participants. We enable commercial and social interactions among hundreds of millions of users, between consumers and merchants, and among businesses every day. We strive to expand our products and services to become central to the everyday lives of our customers. Alibaba @ Alibaba @ Alibaba @ 4 Alibaba Group Holding Limited
Our values are fundamental to the way we operate and how we recruit, evaluate and compensate our people. Customers first, employees second, shareholders third This reflects our choice of what’s important, in order of priority. Only by creating sustained customer value can employees grow and shareholders achieve long-term benefit. Change is the only constant Whether you change or not, the world is changing, our customers are changing and the competitive landscape is changing. We must face change with respect and humility. Otherwise, we will fail to see it, fail to respect it, fail to understand it and fail to catch up with it. Whether you change yourself or create change, both are the best kinds of change. Embracing change is the most unique part of our DNA. Trust makes everything simple Trust is both the most precious and fragile thing in the world. The story of Alibaba is a story of building and cherishing trust. Complexity begets complexity, and simplicity breeds simplicity. Aliren are straightforward – what you see is what you get. With trust, there is no second-guessing or suspicion, and the result is simplicity and efficiency. Today’s best performance is tomorrow’s baseline In Alibaba’s most challenging times, this spirit has helped us overcome difficulties and survive. In bad times, we know how to motivate ourselves; in good times, we dare to set “dream targets” (stretch goals). Face the future, or we regress. We must shoot for the moon, challenge ourselves, motivate ourselves and exceed ourselves. Live seriously, work happily Work is now, life is forever. What you do in your job is up to you, but you have responsibility to the ones who love you. Enjoy work as you enjoy life; treat life seriously as you do work. If you live with purpose, you will find reward. You make Alibaba different and make your loved ones proud. Everyone has their own view of work and life; we respect each person’s choice. Whether you live by this value depends on how you live your life. If not now, when? If not me, who? This was a tagline in Alibaba’s first job advertisement and became our first proverb. It is not a question, but a call of duty. This proverb symbolizes the sense of ownership that each Aliren must possess. Customers First, Employees Second, Shareholders Third Change Is The Only Constant Trust Makes Everything Simple If Not Now, When? If Not Me, Who? Today’s Best Performance Is Tomorrow’s Baseline Live Seriously, Work Happily 5 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report Our Values
AliDay May 10th is our annual AliDay, an employee-appreciation day introduced in 2005 to celebrate the spirit of determination, unity, dedication, and love that Aliren showcased during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic. On AliDay, employees are invited to bring their families and loved ones to our main campus in Hangzhou, China and offices worldwide to experience our vibrant culture firsthand. Ali-versary At Alibaba, employee tenure is likened to the aging of fine wine, symbolizing the transition from acceptance, integration, then culture carrier. “One Year Aromatic,” “Three Years Mellow,” “Five Years Mature” and “Ten Years Fragrant” are how we characterize employees who have been with the company for one year, three years, five years and ten years, respectively. Alibaba hosts a special ceremony to present customized rings to our “Five Years Mature” employees. Alibaba Group values every single employee. We hope to realize our commitment to “live seriously, work happily” through employee engagement activities, big and small! 6 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Our Vibrant Culture and People
Culture of Philanthropy In 2015, Alibaba launched an initiative to encourage all employees to volunteer at least three hours of community service per year. This initiative has become part of the company’s unique culture. Alibaba has hosted its Philanthropy Week every year since 2017 to champion charitable causes with partners across its ecosystem. Another initiative is the Alibaba Philanthropy Award, an annual ceremony recognizing outstanding charity projects, teams and individuals. In the fiscal year 2023, ten charity projects were rewarded, including those which offered support to people with visual impairment, children in rural areas, and patients with rare diseases. Rich, Multi-Dimensional Employee Engagement Initiatives Our management seeks to understand employees’ viewpoints and regularly engages with staff worldwide through online channels and in-person events. This allows management to gain visibility into the interests and thoughts of employees, which helps contribute to the company’s vitality and healthy organizational development. 9.10 Customer Day September 10th, the day Alibaba was founded, has been the company’s annual Customer Day since 2015. This day was established to encourage all employees to remember that customers are our number one priority and to uphold our “customer first” value. No matter how the world changes, Alibaba will always remain committed to its founding purpose of serving our customers. Daniel Zhang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group, and other senior executives have direct in-person engagements with customer representatives to understand their thoughts and suggestions. 7 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report
April Alibaba Group joined Low Carbon Patent Pledge to accelerate adoption of green technology and foster collaborative innovation and made nine key patents for green data center technology available for free. During the COVID-19 resurgence, Freshippo and Ele.me supported the supply and delivery of essential goods to residents in Shanghai. Cainiao also established an emergency logistics system including disaster preparedness management, emergency transportation and transit deployment. June Alibaba Cloud announced the global launch of Energy Expert, a sustainability platform to help customers worldwide measure, analyze and manage the carbon emissions of their business activities and products. August Alibaba Group issued its 2022 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report, announcing seven action dimensions of its long-term ESG plan for the first time. September 2022 marked the fifth anniversary of Tmall Luxury Pavilion. In the twelve months ended September 30, 2022, international luxury brands launched over 30,000 new products each month on average and more than 500 new product series made their debut on Tmall Luxury Pavilion during the period. 2022 May Alibaba Cloud launched new data centers in Thailand and Germany to bolster local businesses’ digital innovation capabilities and to support the growing digital transformation demands from customers. Alibaba ranked second in the Language Use Case in the Gartner® “Critical Capabilities for Cloud AI Developer Services” report(1). Note: (1) Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Cloud AI Developer Services, Updated 30 March 2023, Published 23 May 2022. Critical Capabilities reference provided for historical purposes only and does not reflect current market recognition. Key Events in Fiscal Year 2023 8 Alibaba Group Holding Limited
December In response to the urgent need for online and offline merchants, factories and foreign trade enterprises to resume operations, Taobao, Tmall, Alibaba.com and AliExpress introduced support measures to alleviate their problems such as shortage of operating capital and challenges in digital transformation. November Alibaba equipped merchants with tools and solutions to grow their brand loyalty membership programs and unveil new products, to help them succeed during and beyond the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. Alibaba Cloud hosted its annual Apsara Conference and launched ModelScope model-as-a-service platform, hosting open-source AI models, including pretrained models, and a series of serverless data products and upgraded data analytics platform. January Alibaba, represented by the Alibaba Foundation, donated RMB125 million for the procurement of oximeters to alleviate the problems of medical care and resource limitations in the rural villages in China. The equipment was promptly dispatched to the rural areas by Cainiao. February In response to the earthquake that struck Türkiye, Trendyol mobilized its resources to provide aid in the relief effort including the procurement of urgently needed supplies to the affected areas as delivered by Cainiao, and working with local NGOs to raise funds from the international community. Alibaba helped deliver winter supplies from China to victims in Türkiye. March Alibaba Group announced a new organizational and governance structure to empower all its businesses to become more agile in response to market changes and better positioned to seize market and industry opportunities. The company would establish six main business groups – including Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao and Tmall Group, Local Services Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Limited and Digital Media and Entertainment Group – and various businesses with independent management and operations. 2023 9 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report
10 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Letter from our Chairman and CEO 2023 is destined to be a year filled with significance in Alibaba history. Our organizational transformation is an unprecedented journey in the history of business in China and a daring experiment for a large-scale organization. We believe the market is the best litmus test, and time will prove its worth.
11 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report Letter from our Chairman and CEO Dear Shareholders, Thank you for your continued trust, support, and recognition. Over the past year, we have collectively witnessed and experienced many significant events – we finally moved on from the pandemic, work and life got back on track, and the world reopened. New disruptive AI technology is changing how we view the world and understand reality, and there are high hopes for it to drive fundamental change across all aspects of the human experience. During this time of big transformations, I appreciate the opportunity to share with you the series of important changes at Alibaba over the past year, along with our thoughts and outlook for the future. 2023 is destined to be a year filled with significance in Alibaba history. Just before the end of the fiscal year, we announced a decision with far-reaching impact – after 24 years, Alibaba is evolving from a single company into a new governance model of “1+6+N” in which major business groups and various companies have independent operations. “1” represents Alibaba Group’s holding company, “6” refers to six major business groups – Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao and Tmall Group, Local Services Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce (AIDC) Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Limited, and Digital Media and Entertainment Group, and “N” refers to various businesses such as Alibaba Health, Sun Art Retail, and Freshippo. Each entity in the “6+N” will establish its own board of directors that will provide oversight and support to the chief executive officer of the business. Moving forward, Alibaba Group will focus on implementing good capital management, supporting the healthy development of our major business groups and various companies, and fostering the development of new innovative businesses.
Over the last 24 years, the Alibaba family became quite diverse, with increasingly more creative and dynamic units. Our consumer-focused businesses in China served over one billion Chinese consumers last year. Cloud Intelligence Group is currently the world’s third largest and Asia Pacific’s largest cloud computing service provider. As of March 31, 2023, Cloud Intelligence Group has 86 availability zones across 28 regions worldwide, serving more than four million global customers, including 80% of China’s science and technology innovation enterprises, 60% of China’s national-level specialized “little giant” enterprises, and 55% of listed companies on the Chinese stock exchanges. AIDC Group served hundreds of millions of overseas consumers with a comprehensive selection of local and global products and holistic consumption experience, and reached over 47 million active SME buyers worldwide. Cainiao celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this year, and is developing a world-class smart logistics network within China and across international markets. It processed over four million cross-border and international parcels daily in fiscal year 2023 and is working to offer a five-day delivery service for cross-border parcels in the future, starting from its main markets. The Local Services Group’s platform businesses have provided convenient “to-home” and “to-destination” services to hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers. On October 1, 2022, the digital map navigation platform Amap registered a peak record of 220 million daily active users. The Digital Media and Entertainment Group has focused on delivering “ordinary people, powerful feelings, positive energy” content, and several releases have generated wide influence. Under the new governance structure, these business groups will independently cater to their respective markets, become self-reliant, and find unique paths to greater growth. Except for Taobao and Tmall Group, all business groups and companies can raise external capital and potentially seek their own independent public offerings, subject to meeting the necessary conditions. To date, we have announced plans for the following transactions: • Cloud Intelligence Group will pursue a full spinoff from Alibaba Group via a stock dividend distribution to our shareholders and become an independent publicly listed company; • Cainiao Smart Logistics Network and Freshippo will seek independent public offerings, respectively; • AIDC Group will seek external capital. Our organizational transformation is an unprecedented journey in the history of business in China and a daring experiment for a large-scale organization. As early as 2015, we introduced the “middle platform” strategy, then built the “large middle platform, small front office” organizational model, which supported our front line teams and became the industry benchmark. In 2020, we championed the development of an agile organization and gradually introduced greater management independence across our businesses. Internally we established a number of independently operated companies, including Cainiao Smart Logistics Network, Freshippo, and Local Services. In this latest development, we have progressed to the next stage of our transformation, which is the latest organizational governance structure of “1+6+N”. Our robust balance sheet was instrumental in such a monumental transformation. Despite the challenges created by the global macroeconomic landscape, market fluctuations, and the pandemic, our businesses delivered solid progress. We generated approximately US$25 billion in free cash flow during the fiscal year. We used our abundant cash reserves to invest in new technologies, businesses, and great talent while continuing to execute our share repurchase program. During the fiscal year, we repurchased approximately 130 million ADSs (the equivalent of one billion ordinary shares) for approximately US$10.9 billion and continued to explore different ways to create value for our shareholders. At the beginning of 2023, I proposed “progress” as the keyword to set the tone for Alibaba’s development plans. “Progress” was necessary not only for the macro-environment changes and cyclical trends but also for Alibaba’s development trajectory. We believe the market is the best litmus test, and time will prove its worth. As we face a new era of unknowns, we hope to unleash our internal dynamism and creative forces through radical self-transformation that can withstand the test of the market and be positioned to capture the generational opportunities ahead. We believe our new governance structure will benefit the discovery and creation of value for our customers, business, and shareholders, and, hopefully, a chance to contribute greater value to the broader society. 12 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Letter from our Chairman and CEO
Alibaba is unwavering in its commitment to focusing on the long-term, value creation, and the three strategies of consumption, cloud computing, and globalization. As we face a new era of unknowns, we hope to unleash our internal dynamism and creative forces through radical self-transformation that can withstand the test of the market and be positioned to capture the generational opportunities ahead. Of course, some things will not change. Alibaba is unwavering in its commitment to focusing on the long-term, value creation, and the three strategies of consumption, cloud computing, and globalization. Over the last 20 years, we captured two historical opportunities: e-commerce in China’s consumerfocused Internet and cloud computing in China’s industrial Internet. Looking ahead, we will continue to serve hundreds of millions of households and support hundreds of thousands of industries through our two engines catering to the consumer Internet and industrial Internet, respectively. As the digital era begins its transition to the intelligent era, we must capture the generational opportunities associated with technology driving business transformation and the rapid changes in AI to create a larger runway for our businesses. We believe that AI’s contributions are not limited to efficiency improvements. We think it will create brand-new value. As we begin this new chapter, Alibaba Group will welcome a new management team on September 10th. Joe will succeed me as the chairman of Alibaba Group, and Eddie as the chief executive officer of Alibaba Group. As for myself, I will be fully dedicated to my role as chairman and chief executive officer of our Cloud Intelligence Group and take on the new challenge of exploring the immense future in transforming and innovating with hundreds of thousands of industries through cloud computing, big data and AI. The future is born out of our creations. Thank you again for your trust and support for Alibaba. I hope I will have the privilege of your companionship on the new journey, and may our future be extraordinary and full of miracles. Daniel Zhang Alibaba Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Cloud Intelligence Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer July 2023 13 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report Letter from our Chairman and CEO
Business Overview
16 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Business Overview Company Overview To fulfill our mission “to make it easy to do business anywhere,” we enable businesses to transform the way they market, sell and operate and improve their efficiencies. We provide the technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help merchants, brands, retailers and other businesses to leverage the power of new technology to engage with their users and customers and operate in a more efficient way. We also empower enterprises with our leading cloud infrastructure and services and enhanced work collaboration capabilities to facilitate their digital transformation and to support the growth of their businesses. For fiscal year 2023, our businesses are comprised of China commerce, International commerce, Local consumer services, Cainiao, Cloud, Digital media and entertainment, and Innovation initiatives and others. An ecosystem has developed around our platforms and businesses that consists of consumers, merchants, brands, retailers, third-party service providers, strategic alliance partners and other businesses. China Commerce China Commerce Retail We are the largest retail commerce business in the world in terms of GMV in the twelve months ended March 31, 2023, according to Analysys. Our China commerce retail businesses primarily include Taobao and Tmall, which together constitute the world’s largest digital retail business in terms of GMV for the twelve months ended March 31, 2023, according to Analysys, Taobao Deals which offers consumers value-for-money products, Taocaicai which provides next-day pick-up services for groceries and fresh goods at neighborhood pick-up points, as well as our direct sales businesses which offer upgraded consumer experiences with integrated online and offline capabilities, including Tmall Supermarket, Freshippo and Sun Art. During the same period, we generated approximately 65% of our revenue from our retail commerce business in China. The 11.11 Global Shopping Festival is a large-scale global festival held by Alibaba Group annually.
Largest retail commerce business in the world (1) Largest integrated domestic wholesale marketplace in China (2) 17 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report Business Overview We have also developed a digital commerce infrastructure that offers an upgraded consumer experience by seamlessly integrating online and offline capabilities for our marketplaces and direct sales businesses. Leveraging our product and supply chain capabilities as well as fulfillment and delivery expertise, our consumers can enjoy a broad variety of quality products at different price points with a wide selection of delivery options that satisfy their varying needs. China Commerce Wholesale 1688.com, China’s largest integrated domestic wholesale marketplace in 2022 by net revenue, according to Analysys, connects wholesale buyers and sellers across a wide range of categories. International Commerce International Commerce Retail Our International commerce retail businesses, including Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol and Daraz, empower brands and merchants with local market insights and critical commerce infrastructure, in turn serving local consumers through wide product selection and differentiated customer experience. Lazada, a leading and fast-growing e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, serves one of the largest user bases among the global e-commerce platforms by providing consumers with access to a broad range of offerings from local SMEs, and regional and global brands. Additionally, Lazada operates one of the leading e-commerce logistics networks in Southeast Asia, which provides reliable, quality and convenient logistics services to its consumers and merchants. AliExpress, one of our international retail marketplaces, enables global consumers to buy directly from manufacturers and distributors in China and around the world. During the first quarter of 2023, AliExpress launched a new service Choice, which offers global consumers a curated selection of great value products across an extensive range of categories. Consumers in selected countries enjoy free shipping, free returns and quality delivery guarantees when placing orders on Choice. By leveraging chartered flights and utilizing overseas warehouses, AliExpress is able to offer these value-added services with shortened delivery time in key strategic countries. Trendyol, which we believe is by far the leading Notes: (1) Our China commerce retail business is the largest retail commerce business in the world in terms of GMV in the twelve months ended March 31, 2023, according to Analysys. (2) 1688.com is China’s largest integrated domestic wholesale marketplace in 2022 by net revenue, according to Analysys.
18 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Business Overview e-commerce platform in Türkiye in terms of both GMV and order volume in 2022, serves consumers with a broad selection of products and services through its e-commerce business as well as local consumer services for food and groceries. Consumers also enjoy the quality and convenient delivery services provided by Trendyol’s fulfillment and logistics networks. Beyond Türkiye, Trendyol has expanded internationally by leveraging its product sourcing capabilities and supply chain advantages in Türkiye. We also operate Daraz, a leading e-commerce platform across South Asia with key markets in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Additionally, in November 2022, we launched Miravia, an e-commerce platform in Spain that connects brands and content creators with consumers by providing consumers with an innovative and entertaining shopping experience. International Commerce Wholesale We operate Alibaba.com, China’s largest integrated international online wholesale marketplace in 2022 by revenue, according to Analysys. During fiscal year 2023, buyers who sourced business opportunities or completed transactions on Alibaba.com were located across over 190 countries. Local Consumer Services We use mobile and online technology to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and convenience of consumer services for both service providers and their customers in two distinct scenarios: “To-Home” and “To-Destination.” Our “To-Home” business enables consumers to order food and beverages, groceries, FMCG, flowers and pharmaceutical products anytime and anywhere through Ele.me, a leading local services and ondemand delivery platform. Our “To-Destination” businesses, including Amap, Fliggy and Koubei, provide consumers with convenient access to quality services at their destinations. Amap, a leading provider of mobile digital map, navigation and real-time traffic information in China, provides users with a simple one-stop access point to services such as navigation, local services and ride-hailing. Fliggy, a leading online travel platform, provides comprehensive services to meet consumers’ travel needs. Koubei, our restaurant and local services guide platform for in-store consumption, provides merchants with targeted marketing solutions, digital operation capabilities and analytics tools and allows consumers to discover local services content on the platform. Cainiao Leveraging our self-developed and our logistics partners’ capacities and capabilities, Cainiao offers domestic and international one-stop-shop logistics services and supply chain management solutions, addressing various logistics needs of merchants and consumers at scale. Cainiao also uses data insights and technology to digitalize the entire logistics process and enhance the capabilities of our logistics partners, thereby improving consumer experience and efficiency across the logistics value chain. For consumers, Cainiao offers parcel pick-up services through Cainiao Post, our neighborhood logistics solution that operates a network of neighborhood, campus and rural village stations and residential self pick-up lockers. Consumers can also enjoy parcel pick-up at the doorstep and time-guaranteed delivery service through Cainiao. For merchants, Cainiao has built a full-fledged fulfillment network at provincial, city, and county levels in China, which offers customized fulfillment solutions to different types of merchants on our platforms. Globally, Cainiao has developed a network of assets and partners to support merchants on our cross-border and international commerce retail platforms such as AliExpress, Tmall Global and Lazada. Cloud Our Cloud segment is comprised of Alibaba Cloud and DingTalk. Alibaba Group is the world’s third largest and Asia Pacific’s largest Infrastructure-as-a-service provider by revenue in 2022 in U.S. dollars, according to Gartner’s April 2023 report (Source: Gartner®, “Market Share: IT Services, Worldwide, 2022”, Neha Sethi et al., 14 April 2023, Sorted by Infrastructure-asa-Service, Vendor Revenue Basis) (Asia Pacific refers to Mature Asia/Pacific, Greater China, Emerging Asia/ Pacific and Japan, and market share refers to that of infrastructure-as-a-service ). Alibaba Group is also China’s largest provider of public cloud services by revenue in 2022, including PaaS and IaaS services, according to IDC (Source: IDC Quarterly Public Cloud Services Tracker, 2022H2&2022Q4). Alibaba Cloud offers a complete suite of cloud services, including proprietary servers, computing, storage, network, security, database, big data, container, machine learning, and model training and inference, serving our ecosystem and beyond. We leverage these capabilities and technologies to provide our customers across various verticals with industry-specific solutions, enabling intelligent business decisions and operations. In addition, we offer Alibaba Cloud’s enterprise customers a number of DingTalk’s solutions
19 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report Business Overview to empower them with enhanced work collaboration capabilities and easy access to Alibaba Cloud’s big data analytics and AI capabilities, further facilitating their digital transformation. We believe our cloud services’ added value translates into direct and tangible results, and these services have become a critical foundation for our customers, many of whom are reputable industry leaders in their respective verticals. In April 2023, Alibaba Cloud unveiled its latest large language model (LLM), Tongyi Qianwen. The new LLM will be integrated into all business applications across Alibaba’s ecosystem in the near future to further enhance user experience. To enable enterprise customers to reap the benefits of AI-driven innovation, Alibaba Cloud will offer its clients access to Tongyi Qianwen on the cloud and enable them to develop customized LLM for their business scenarios. DingTalk is our intelligent collaboration workplace and application development platform that offers new ways of working, sharing and collaboration for modern enterprises and organizations. Equipped with our cloud capabilities and big data analytics, DingTalk aims to facilitate the digital transformation of enterprises and organizations. Millions of enterprises and users use DingTalk to stay connected and work remotely. According to QuestMobile, DingTalk is the largest business efficiency mobile app in China by monthly active users in March 2023. Digital Media and Entertainment Digital media and entertainment is a natural extension of our strategy to capture consumption beyond our commerce businesses. Insights we gain from our commerce businesses and our proprietary data technology enable us to deliver relevant digital media and entertainment content to consumers. This synergy delivers a superior entertainment experience, increases customer loyalty and improves monetization for content providers across the ecosystem. Youku, a leading online long-form video platform in China, serves as one of our key distribution platforms for digital media and entertainment content. Quark, our one-stop platform for information search, storage and consumption, helps young users access, process and manage a variety of digital content and information for learning and work purposes. In addition, Alibaba Pictures, driven by high-quality content and technology, is an integrated platform that provides content production, promotion and distribution, intellectual property-related licensing and commercial operation, cinema ticketing management and Internet data services for the entertainment industry. Youku, Quark, Alibaba Pictures and our other platforms, such as newsfeed and literature platforms, allow users to discover and consume content as well as interact with each other. In addition, we develop, operate and distribute mobile games through Lingxi Games. Innovation Initiatives and Others We continue to innovate and develop new service and product offerings with the goals of meeting the needs of our customers, improving efficiency in their daily lives and creating synergies among our ecosystem participants. DAMO Academy, our global research program in cutting-edge technologies, aims to integrate and speed up knowledge exchange between science and industry. DAMO Academy encourages a collaborative environment that facilitates the application of scientific discoveries to real-life circumstances. Tmall Genie smart speaker, a leading smart speaker in China, provides an interactive interface for our customers to easily access services offered by our ecosystem participants. Our Ecosystem An ecosystem has developed around our platforms and businesses, consisting of consumers, merchants, brands, retailers, third-party service providers, strategic alliance partners and other businesses. At the nexus of this ecosystem are our technology platform, our marketplace rules and the role we play in connecting these participants to make it possible for them to discover, engage and transact with each other and manage their businesses anytime and anywhere. Much of our effort, time and energy is spent on initiatives that are for the greater good of the ecosystem and on balancing the interests of its participants. We feel a strong responsibility for the continued development of the ecosystem and we take ownership in this development. Accordingly, we refer to this as “our ecosystem.” Our ecosystem has strong self-reinforcing network effects benefitting its various participants, who are in turn invested in our ecosystem’s growth and success.
20 Alibaba Group Holding Limited The following chart sets forth our main businesses for fiscal year 2023 by segment: China Commerce International Commerce Local Consumer Services Wholesale Retail To Home Retail Wholesale Alibaba Ecosystem (Ele.me) (Amap) (Taobao Deals) (Xianyu) (Taocaicai) To Destination
21 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report Cainiao Cloud Digital Media and Entertainment Innovation Initiatives and Others
22 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Business Overview Our Strategies In an increasingly complex world, digital adoption and transformation of our customers are accelerating across different industries. On the consumer retail side, online shopping is no longer simply a purchase behavior for more consumers but has also become a necessary rather than an optional channel of sales to brick-and mortar retailers. For enterprises and organizations, digital transformation is accelerating as technology changes the way people live and work. Recently, generative AI, an innovative technology product enabled by large language models, or LLMs, excited the world with possibilities of elevating productivity and efficiency to a new level, and further accelerating the digital transformation of enterprises and organizations. We believe such transformation presents tremendous opportunities and requires us to be more focused, innovative and agile in establishing our strategic capabilities and priorities. To this aim, we are proactively transforming our organization through a new organizational and governance structure to strengthen the competitiveness of our businesses through greater independence and further unlock value for our shareholders. We believe our new structure will empower all of our businesses to become more agile and nimble in decision making, responding to market changes and promoting innovations. With our environmental, social and governance responsibilities as the foundation of our long-term strategy, we strive to strengthen our leadership and build core capabilities in three strategic areas: consumption, cloud, and globalization. Consumption Consumption continues to present significant opportunities in China and globally. In China, while we believe that our annual active consumer base already captures the vast majority of Internet users with meaningful consumption power, there remains significant opportunities for us in wallet share expansion. We aim to capture these opportunities by providing differentiated value services to our customers with different consuming power, needs and mindset. We offer a multidimensional matrix of consumer apps with clearly differentiated value propositions that aim to meet the various consumer demands across metropolitan and less-developed regions, differing time sensitivities, and different income levels and consumption models. We will continue to enhance and enrich our portfolio of consumer apps, and enable new consumption models and formats to better serve the evolving needs of consumers. We are also further strengthening our supply chain capabilities, including through direct sales model and integrated online and offline solutions, to strengthen the competitiveness of our products and services and enhance our penetration in categories that are essential to our consumers’ daily lives. In addition, to enhance the positioning of our Taobao app, China’s largest digital retail platform, from a transaction-focused marketplace to a consumer destination for discovery and shopping, we continue to focus on creating personalized, immersive and interactive experience through relevant and highly engaging consumption-related content and our apps’ rich interfaces and features. We are also actively exploring new consumption models, formats and technologies to create better shopping experience for our users. Over the years, we have established a comprehensive infrastructure for digital commerce with diversified fulfillment models. Through Cainiao, we aim to establish a hybrid delivery network covering intracity, intercity and supply chain services. We are building instant delivery and same-city express delivery capabilities in key cities in China to fulfill a reliable neighborhood shopping experience. We are also investing to establish a nationwide express delivery network with cold-chain, bulky and large appliance delivery capabilities to provide merchants with comprehensive delivery options in key categories such as fresh produce, FMCG and electronics. We will continue to invest in these capabilities to enhance our core competitiveness and value creation to our merchants and consumers, achieving sustainable and high-quality growth. We will discuss the consumption opportunity outside of China under the globalization strategy.
23 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report Business Overview Cloud We believe that digitalization presents the biggest opportunity of our time, and cloud computing plays a fundamental role in the digital transformation across various industries. Cloud is rapidly replacing traditional IT infrastructure with much higher efficiency at lower cost. It enables traditionally unstructured, undiscovered and underutilized data to be captured, activated and harnessed as a new source of intelligence to help businesses make decisions, improve operating efficiency and grow. With the onset of generative AI, digital transformation of enterprises and organizations will further accelerate to achieve higher level of operating efficiency and business growth. In order to capture the tremendous opportunities of enterprise digitalization, we will continue to strengthen our market leadership as a global cloud service provider, and focus on highquality growth through improving operating efficiency, enhancing core products and technologies, investing in innovative technology and products to empower next-generation entrepreneurs and advancing our Cloud-DingTalk integration strategy. We strive to empower our customers and ecosystem partners with powerful digital infrastructure to support the growth of their businesses. We will continue to work with industry partners to develop verticalspecific solutions to facilitate digital transformation of various industries. Our strategic initiative to integrate DingTalk with Alibaba Cloud has enabled enterprise customers to digitalize their organization and business collaboration through DingTalk’s open platform, with data generated and accumulated to cloud. We will continue to expand the user base of DingTalk’s core applications and strengthen its open-platform ecosystem of industry solutions to enable further digitalization of business operations within and across organizations. We will also cultivate new business opportunities in industrial digitalization and nextgeneration Internet through investments in cloudbased industry solutions and frontier technologies. Globalization Despite the uncertainties and complexities in the global macro environment, we remain firmly committed to our globalization strategy. We will take full advantage of the vast opportunities in the global market to serve customers in and outside of China. Our globalization strategy has two components: globalization of consumption and globalization of cloud. Both of these can only be sustained with the support of local ecosystems of consumption and technology. We strive to make diversified offerings available to our users worldwide by empowering our local merchants and partners, supported by our supply chain advantages in China and cross-border capabilities. Stemming from Southeast Asia, we strive to serve consumers and merchants around the world through both localized and cross-border offerings. We will continue to develop our local and cross-border retail commerce in key strategic markets, such as Southeast Asia and Europe, while exploring business model innovations. To support the globalization initiatives of our commerce businesses, we plan to continue developing critical international infrastructure and capabilities, including logistics and payment, in order to drive differentiated and superior experience for our users in key strategic markets. In addition, as the largest IaaS service provider in Asia Pacific, we continue to expand our international cloud infrastructure and strengthen local cloud service capabilities, especially in Southeast Asia. We have set up data centers in 28 regions globally, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, among others. We aim to empower local customers with our strong cloud capabilities, customized vertical-specific solutions and localized services to better serve industrial digitalization demands globally. We also strive to work with our local partners to build up ecosystems of cloud computing, further driving the digital transformation across various industries. Environmental, Social and Governance Responsibilities ESG, as the foundation of our long-term strategy, not only provides a framework for solving a series of global challenges, but also serves as the bridge to carry Alibaba to 102 years. We believe we can only create and sustain a profitable and prosperous business by bringing positive change to the society. We are committed to assuming greater responsibility while pursuing business excellence as the operator of a platform economy. See “— Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG).”
124 million+ AACs spent over RMB10,000 (1) 24 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Business Overview Our Businesses China Commerce China Commerce Retail We operate the largest retail commerce business in the world in terms of GMV in the twelve months ended March 31, 2023, according to Analysys. Our retail commerce businesses in China, primarily consisting of Taobao, Tmall and our various direct sales businesses which offer upgraded consumer experiences with integrated online and offline capabilities, have become an important part of the everyday lives of consumers in China. Empowered by our commerce technologies and services, we appeal to a massive base of consumers by connecting them with diversified and comprehensive offerings in highly engaging and social formats. • Consumers. We serve a large and diversified consumer base in China, across both large cities and less-developed areas. We believe our platforms continue to appeal to consumers at various income levels and address their evolving consumption needs. For example, Taobao Deals offers consumers value-for-money products and Taocaicai provides consumers with next-day pick-up services for a wide range of groceries and fresh goods at neighborhood pick-up points. In addition, our ability to offer and deliver value has driven increased consumer engagement over time. Generally, the longer consumers have been with us, the more orders they tend to place across a more diverse range of product categories. Consumers on Taobao and Tmall continue to exhibit high retention. In fiscal year 2023, there were more than 124 million annual active consumers who each spent more than RMB10,000 on purchasing physical goods on Taobao and Tmall. For fiscal year 2023, the retention rate of annual active consumers who each spent over RMB10,000 on purchasing physical goods on Taobao and Tmall in the prior fiscal year stayed at a similar level compared to that of fiscal year 2022. • Products and Services. We believe our ecosystem offers the most comprehensive range of products and services among global commerce platforms to meet the diverse demands of our massive and diversified consumer base across different segments. We have developed a digital commerce infrastructure that offers an upgraded consumer experience by seamlessly integrating online and offline capabilities for our marketplaces and direct sales businesses. Note: (1) In fiscal year 2023, there were more than 124 million annual active consumers who each spent more than RMB10,000 on purchasing physical goods on Taobao and Tmall.
25 Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report Business Overview Consumers can enjoy a broad variety of quality products at different price levels with a wide selection of delivery options that satisfy their varying needs. The core capabilities that form the critical foundation of our digital commerce infrastructure include the following: — Product and supply chain capabilities. We believe our ecosystem provides the most comprehensive product and service offerings. Our platforms, through collaboration with our merchants and ecosystem partners, offer products ranging from branded products and imported goods to products sourced directly from manufacturers and farms and to other long-tail products. For example, consumers may look for branded products, including luxury brands, trendy fashion brands and new brands, on Tmall, and imported products from around the world on Tmall Global. Taobao Deals enables manufacturers and merchants to sell directly to consumers to meet their needs for value-for-money products. In fiscal year 2023, paid GMV of manufacturer-toconsumer products grew more than 40%. Taocaicai satisfies consumers’ needs for quality and affordable groceries and fresh goods with its next-day pick-up services. Xianyu, our consumer-to-consumer community and marketplace in China, enables consumers to find a wide variety of idle goods, recycled goods, consignment, items for rent, and other long-tail products. In addition, we continue to expand our proprietary supply chain through our direct sales businesses to further enhance our product supply and service capabilities. For example, we leverage Sun Art’s, Freshippo’s and their retail partners’ supply chain networks to provide greater selection of fresh goods and FMCG. We also continue to go upstream to source agricultural products directly to enhance our product selection as well as provide more local and seasonal specialties to our consumers. These extensive supply chain networks and our in-house sourcing capabilities enable us to further penetrate into various verticals. Xianyu enables consumers in China to find a wide variety of idle goods, recycled goods, consignment, items for rent, and other long-tail products.
26 Alibaba Group Holding Limited Business Overview — Fulfillment and delivery expertise. We have developed logistics expertise and capabilities that allow us to offer a full range of high-frequency fulfillment services to satisfy consumer demand. Our comprehensive delivery options include ondemand delivery, half-day delivery, sameor-next-day delivery and next-day pick-up services, which capture the varying needs of consumers living in large cities and lessdeveloped areas. For example, Freshippo’s proprietary fulfillment system enables 30-minute store-to-door delivery for consumers living within a three-kilometer radius of a Freshippo Supermarket store; we provide groceries and fresh goods to consumers with Taocaicai’s next-day pick-up services; and Tmall Supermarket offers daily necessities, FMCG and general merchandise through Taobao app with same-or-next-day delivery services. • Engagement. The massive amount of user and merchant activities taking place every day on our China commerce platforms generate significant consumer insights. By leveraging proprietary AI and data technologies, we are able to aggregate and build on deep consumer insights to provide more accurate search results and relevant recommendation feeds that enhance the shopping experience for our consumers. Our various commerce platforms also enable merchants to engage with consumers through a variety of formats, including livestreaming, shortform videos, interactive games and microblogs. We continue to introduce interactive features and innovative formats to facilitate user engagement with brands, merchants and content creators. Along with these features and formats, our relevant and engaging entertainment content plays an important role in consumers’ product discovery process and shopping journey by providing an immersive and personalized shopping experience, and driving user stickiness and retention on our various platforms.
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