Alibaba testing Pakistan’s e-commerce market

Executive says company’s web browser has already grabbed 25% market share

LAHORE: Global e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Limited, spurred by the fast-growing information technology market in Pakistan, is looking at the country with profound interest and is testing the market’s response with the launch of a couple of its ventures.

This development, though, has no link with a meeting held last week between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Alibaba Group Founder Jack Ma on the sidelines of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which the premier invited Alibaba to explore the growing e-commerce opportunities in Pakistan.

The group was already seeking to start its ventures in Pakistan’s market, which has been driven primarily by mobile internet services.

Last year, Alibaba formally launched its subsidiary, UCWeb - a mobile internet company, in Pakistan through which it was providing mobile browsing service with the help of UC Browser.



The other venture, which has not been formally launched, but is present in Pakistan, is Aliexpress, an e-commerce ancillary that works in the retail segment in different countries.

According to industry experts, the group is currently receiving around 15,000 orders per day from Pakistan via Aliexpress.

In order to grab more opportunities, the group has entered into an agreement with a local company, which will provide vendors for smooth operations in Punjab’s first and second-tier cities initially.

Aliexpress has not been formally launched as training sessions and work on necessary infrastructure are currently under way.

According to Alibaba Mobile Business Group Head of Marketing in Emerging Markets Andrea Huang, UCWeb has acquired 25.3% market share in Pakistan, second after Google Chrome and Firefox.

“We have decided to fully market our product here as we are successfully leading in China, India and Indonesia with a global customer base of 420 million active users,” Huang told The Express Tribune in an interview over Skype.



The immense growth in 3G and 4G connections in Pakistan, coupled with a population of over 190 million, was the biggest attraction for formally launching the group’s product. Huang said they were currently marketing the product while residing in China. “It is not easy to penetrate Pakistan’s market in the presence of other web browsers; the biggest challenge is to widen the user base and provide users the best available services within the browser,” she said.

“For this, we are investing in our product to keep finding the demand and better services. At present, we don’t have a formal office in Pakistan, but once we expand out of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, we will hire a team and open up offices in Pakistan.” UC Browser was the first mobile browser to introduce cloud computing technology back in 2004. Though Huang did not disclose the initial and upcoming investment by UCWeb in Pakistan, she said they would continue to pour capital in upcoming years.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2017.

Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.