By Jiahui Huang


Alibaba Group formed a new business group to integrate its domestic and overseas e-commerce platforms, in the company's biggest restructuring move after it split into six divisions last year.

The company said in a filling Thursday that the new e-commerce business group will include Taobao and Tmall Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, 1688 Marketplace, Idle Fish and others. Alibaba appointed Fan Jiang as chief executive for the business group, according to the filing.

"E-commerce and AI technology are the most critical development areas for Alibaba Group," Alibaba Chief Executive Eddie Wu wrote in an internal letter Thursday seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The new business group will better leverage the company's e-commerce resources and support small and medium-size companies in expanding in domestic and overseas markets, Wu said in the letter.

Once a darling of Wall Street and the dominant player in China's e-commerce industry, Alibaba has faced challenges boosting revenue growth amid a slowing Chinese economy and intensifying competition. Homegrown upstarts such as PDD Holdings' Pinduoduo e-commerce platform and ByteDance's short-video app Douyin have been eating into its market share.

In March 2023, Alibaba split itself into six independently run businesses, effectively dismantling a business empire built over two decades by entrepreneur Jack Ma.

Alibaba reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue for the fiscal second quarter. Sales at Alibaba's core domestic e-commerce business, Taobao and Tmall Group, rose 1.4% to 98.99 billion yuan, equivalent to $13.66 billion, from 97.65 billion yuan a year earlier.

Earlier this month, Alibaba's domestic e-commerce unit said it achieved "robust growth" in gross merchandise volume and a record number of active buyers during this year's Singles' Day, China's biggest online shopping festival. The company hasn't disclosed the overall GMV figure, a measure of total online sales, for the monthlong event in recent years.

The company has invested heavily in its domestic and international units in recent quarters to regain its past market dominance.

--Raffaele Huang, Tracy Qu contributed to this article.


Write to Jiahui Huang at jiahui.huang@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-21-24 0628ET