Canada’s Minister of Industry, James Moore, tweeted November 10 that the Amazon of China, Alibaba Group, is seriously thinking of opening up shop in Vancouver.
Had a great meeting with http://t.co/jBYn06g8ZM CEO Jack Ma. Alibaba is seriously considering a new campus in Vancouver. #DigitalCanada
— James Moore (@JamesMoore_org) November 10, 2014
The Chinese e-commerce company, headquartered in Hangzhou, currently employs over 26,000 people and is worth an estimated $231 billion. To put this into context, Alibaba’s 2013 sales amounted to $248 billion, more than the sales of Amazon and eBay combined. In May 2014, Alibaba requested to go public in the U.S., possibly with the largest initial public offering in American history.
Alibaba Group has been called the Google of China, Groupon of China, Amazon of China, the eBay of China and the Paypal of China.
Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba, recently told Stephen Harper he was “seriously considering” opening an office in Vancouver and “hoped to sell 200,000 Canadian lobsters online in a ‘single’s day’ promotion next week,” as reported November 7 by the National Post.
Ma believes that opening shop in Vancouver would create Canadian jobs by allowing small and medium-sized businesses to sell to China.
Alibaba Group controls some of China’s largest internet companies, including consumer-to-consumer online shopping platform Taobao, Tmall.com, video streaming service Youku Tudou, China Yahoo! And online payment platform Alipay, amongst others.
If Alibaba Group entered the North American markets, it would create large competition for some of our tech giants, including Amazon, eBay and Google. With the company’s profits and potential IPO, there is no doubt a Vancouver campus would be a game-changer.
Featured Image: Alibaba via Shutterstock
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