NET WORTH : $34.5 Billion Dollars
Chinese entrepreneur, businessman, and philanthropist Jack Ma Yun. He is one of the co-founders of the global technology company Alibaba Group. Furthermore, Ma is a co-founder of the Chinese private equity firm Yunfeng Capital. With a $34.5 billion net worth as of June 2023, Ma is the 39th wealthiest person in the world and the fourth wealthiest person in China (after Zhong Shanshan, Zhang Yiming, and Ma Huateng), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Ma earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English upon graduating from Hangzhou Normal University in 1988. He became an English lecturer and international trade lecturer at Hangzhou Dianzi University following graduation. Later taking an interest in the emergence of the internet business, he established his first business in 1994, only to end up forming a second company after learning more about the internet and the commercial business possibilities that could be potentially exploited from its emerging growth. From 1998 to 1999, he resigned from China Telecommunications Corporation, later starting the Alibaba Group with his colleagues in 1999. The company was initially founded as a B2B e-commerce marketplace website, yet the company later expanded into a wide range of industry domains across the Chinese economy, including e-commerce, high-technology, and online payment solutions.
Ma came in second place on Fortune's yearly ranking of the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders" in 2017. In Chinese business circles, he is still regarded as something of an informal global ambassador and is a prominent figure in the startup and business communities in China. He declared in September of 2018 that he will leave Alibaba to focus on environmental concerns, charity, and educational endeavors. Daniel Zhang took over as executive chairman the following year. He launched Ant Group, a provider of digital payment solutions, but the Chinese government shelved plans for an IPO in 2020 after he made a speech criticizing Chinese financial authorities for placing an excessive emphasis on risk minimization.
Ma was recognized by Forbes Magazine in 2019 as one of "Asia's 2019 Heroes of Philanthropy" in recognition of his charitable and humanitarian efforts on behalf of impoverished populations in China, Africa, Australia, and the Middle East. With a net worth of $48.4 billion USD, Jack Ma was placed 26th on the "2021 Forbes Global Rich List" in April 2021. With a total financial gift of 3.22 billion yuan, Alibaba Group was led by Jack Ma to the top spot on the 2021 China Charity List in July of that year.
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
Ma Yun was born on September 10, 1964, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. As a young child, he had an interest in studying the language and started conversing with English-speaking guests of the Hangzhou International Hotel. Throughout the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ma's grandpa worked as a security guard. Ma got a pocket radio when she was twelve years old and started regularly tuning in to English radio stations. Ma worked as a tour guide in Hangzhou for foreign visitors for nine years, covering a daily distance of 27 km (17 miles) on his bicycle to improve his English. One of those foreigners became his pen friend, calling him "Jack" as he had trouble pronouncing his Chinese name.
He first met Ken Morley in 1980, while he was riding his bike to practice English with visitors. Ken was on a family trip with the Australia-China Friendship Society. After the family left China, David, Ken's son, maintained in touch with Ma through letter pals. Ma's life radically changed when the Morleys welcomed him in Australia years later. Ma visited the Morleys in Melbourne early in 2023 and left a $26 million charitable bequest to the University of Newcastle, which is situated near the Morley family's hometown. Ma stated of his visit in 2023: "Those 29 days in Newcastle were essential to my life." I never would have been able to think the way I do now if not for those 29 days."
Business Career
In 1988, after graduating from Hangzhou Normal University, Ma applied for thirty-one odd entry-level positions, all of which he was rejected from, according to his autobiographical speech. "I applied for a job at KFC; they told me you weren't good enough," Ma stated to Charlie Rose during the interview. "When KFC opened in my city, I even visited it. Twenty-four applicants pursued the position. Twenty-three were approved. The only other man [rejected] was myself." China was approaching the conclusion of the first ten years after Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms during this time.
Companies Owned By Alibaba Groups
Tmall
Separated from Taobao, Alibaba Group operates Tmall (simplified Chinese: 天猫; traditional Chinese: 天貓; pinyin: Tiānmāo), formerly known as Taobao Mall, which is a Chinese-language website for business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail. It serves as a marketplace for regional and foreign companies operating in Greater China to provide name-brand products to customers. As of February 2018, it has more than 500 million active users per month. It has made its features available to companies in recent years, not just for online purchases but also for raising brand recognition. In 2021, Alexa Rank indicates that it is the third most popular website worldwide.
In order to distinguish its merchant listings—which are either brand owners or authorized distributors—from those of Taobao's C2C merchants, Taobao Mall created its own separate web domain, tmall.com, in November 2010. In the meanwhile, it launched a US$30 million marketing effort to increase customer awareness of the brand. Additionally, it promised enhancements to the shopping experience and a stronger emphasis on product verticals.
Coporation Year : 2008
Revenue : $10 Billion Dollars
AliExpress
The Alibaba Group owns AliExpress, an online shopping business with its headquarters located in China (全球速卖通). It was established in 2010 and is composed of small companies who sell goods to customers online from China and other countries, such Singapore. It was the tenth most popular website in Brazil and the most popular e-commerce website in Russia. It makes it easier for small enterprises to sell to clients worldwide. Because merchants on AliExpress are self-employed and utilize the platform to present items to customers, the platform has been compared to eBay.
Originally, AliExpress was a business-to-business marketplace for buying and selling. Since then, it has grown to encompass cloud computing, payment services, business-to-business, and consumer-to-consumer services. As of 2016, AliExpress offers websites in the following languages: English, Spanish, Dutch, French, Italian, German, Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian, and Russian. For nations where no language is listed above, English is the default. E-commerce sites that leverage a dropshipping business model frequently use AliExpress.
Coporation Year : 2010
Revenue : $2 Billion Dollars
Taobao
Taobao is a Chinese online shopping platform. It is headquartered in Hangzhou and is owned by Alibaba. According to Alexa rank, it was the eighth most-visited website globally in 2021. Taobao.com was registered on April 21, 2003 by Alibaba Cloud Computing (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
Taobao Marketplace facilitates consumer-to-consumer retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online stores that mainly cater to consumers in Chinese-speaking regions (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) and abroad, which is made payable by online accounts. Its stores usually offer an express delivery service.
Coporation Year : 2003
Revenue : $30 Billion Dollars
Alibaba
Alibaba Group Holding Limited, also known as Alibaba (Chinese: 阿里巴巴), is a global technology firm based in China with a focus on technology, retail, e-commerce, and the Internet. Established on June 28, 1999 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the company offers local consumer, digital media and entertainment, logistics, and cloud computing services in addition to consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-business (B2B), and business-to-consumer (B2C) sales services via Chinese and international marketplaces. It is the owner and operator of a varied portfolio of businesses across many industries across the globe.
Alibaba raised US$25 billion in its first public offering (IPO) on September 19, 2014, on the New York Stock Exchange. This gave the business a market valuation of US$231 billion, making it by far the biggest IPO in history. According to Forbes Global 2000 2020, it ranks as the 31st-largest public firm worldwide and is among the top 10 most valuable corporations. After rival Tencent, Alibaba became the second Asian business to surpass the US$500 billion value threshold in January 2018. Alibaba has the ninth-highest worldwide brand worth as of 2022.
Coporation Year : 1999
Revenue : $126 Billion Dollars
Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud, also known as Aliyun (Chinese: 阿里云; pinyin: Ālǐyún; lit. 'Ali Cloud'), is a cloud computing company, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. Alibaba Cloud provides cloud computing services to online businesses and Alibaba's own e-commerce ecosystem. Its international operations are registered and headquartered in Singapore.
It is the largest cloud computing company in China, and in Asia Pacific according to Gartner. Alibaba Cloud operates data centers in 24 regions and 74 availability zones around the globe. As of June 2017, Alibaba Cloud is placed in the Visionaries' quadrant of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for cloud infrastructure as a service, worldwide.
Coporation Year : 2009
Revenue : $4 Million Dollars
Cainiao
Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Limited (Chinese: 菜鸟网络科技有限公司), formerly known as China Smart Logistics Network, is a Chinese logistics company launched by Alibaba Group, jointly with eight other companies, on 28 May 2013. As of May 2018, Cainiao was one of the largest unicorn companies in China, valued at 100 billion yuan.
Cainiao ensures delivery within 24 hours to any region of China. The company also shares resources with other logistics companies.
Coporation Year : 2013
Revenue : $3 Billion Dollars
Lazada
Lazada Group is an international e-commerce company and one of the largest e-commerce operators in Southeast Asia, with over 10,000 third-party sellers as of November 2014, and 50 million annual active buyers as of September 2019.
Backed by Rocket Internet, Maximilian Bittner founded Lazada in 2012 as a marketplace platform that sells inventory to consumers from its own warehouses. Lazada modified its business model the following year to allow third-party retailers to sell their products on its platform too.[citation needed] The marketplace accounted for 65% of the company's sales in 2014.
Coporation Year : 2011
Revenue : $1.8 Billion Dollars
Alibaba Picture Group
A Chinese film studio that is a part of the Alibaba Group is Alibaba Pictures Group. The film firm was originally ChinaVision Media, of which Alibaba Group took a controlling share in late 2014. Alibaba Pictures Group replaced ChinaVision as the new name. By April 2015, it was the largest Chinese film firm by worth, with a market value of US$8.77 billion and by June of the same year it was valued US$9.6 billion.
According to researchers, Françoise Paquienséguy and Miao He, there are almost 30 companies, varying from investment groups to media and film studios, under the Alibaba umbrella. “These include, but are not limited to, such leading companies as Youku Tudou Inc., Enlight Media, Huayi Brothers, Bona Film Group, Wasu Media, Sina Weibo, XiamiMusicand Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club. In addition, Ma Yun also occasionally engages in capital operations, such as establishing Yunhuang and Yunxi Capital…”
Coporation Year : 2015
Revenue : $700 Million Dollars
Alipay
Alipay (simplified Chinese: 支付宝; traditional Chinese: 支付寶; pinyin: zhīfùbǎo) is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company Ant Financial remains Hangzhou-based.
In 2013, Alipay surpassed PayPal to become the largest mobile (digital) payment platform globally. By June 2020, 80 million merchants and over 1.3 billion users were served by Alipay. Based on data from the fourth quarter of 2018, Alipay holds a 55.32% market share in mainland China for third-party payments, and its share is constantly growing.
Coporation Year : 2004
Revenue : $22 Billion Dollars
YouKu
Youku Tudou Inc. (formerly Youku Inc.), doing business as Youku (Chinese: 优酷; lit. 'excellent (and) cool'), is a video hosting service based in Beijing, China. It operates as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited.
Youku is one of China's top online video and streaming service platforms, along with iQiyi, Sohu, LeTV, Tencent Video, PPTV, 56.com and Funshion. However, Youku's domination in the Chinese market was toppled by its competitor Baidu's iQiyi in 2015
Coporation Year : 2006
Revenue : $649 Million Dollars
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