With a year of significant developments in travel, major Chinese ecommerce player
Alibaba Group wants to list on the US public markets.
While the company is mostly known for its retail industry focus, Alibaba has turned its attention recently to the online travel industry market in the country.
It has made a string of investments and acquisitions over the course of the past 12 months, including:
- March 2014, Alibaba and China Broadband Capital (CBC) led about $20 million investment in Chinese outbound travel service ByeCity.
- February 2014, Alibaba offered to fully acquire China mapping service AutoNavi at a valuation of $1.58 billion. Note: In May 2013, Alibaba acquired a 28% stake in the NASDAQ-listed company for $294 million.
- November 2013, Alibaba led a $100 million round in China-based taxi hailing service Kuaidi Dache. Alibaba also provides a payment tool, online map and other support for the taxi hailing service. Prior to this round, Alibaba invested $10 million in Kuaidi. Later in January 2014, Alibaba's mobile payment service Alipay enabled users to pay for Kuaidi Dache taxis. Alipay's other travel industry clients include Garuda Indonesia and Uber China.
- July 2013, Alibaba backed Qyer, a nine-year old Chinese portal that sources travel deals from sites such as Ctrip and Juhuasuan (a service owned by Taobao). Its own Etao (a shopping search engine) launched a hotel metasearch engine, a competitor to Qunar, the country’s biggest travel metasearch engine which is majority owned by Baidu.
- March 2013, Alibaba invested in 117go.com, a travel journal and experience sharing app.
These developments followed the launch of a dedicated
travel portal for of Taobao, deliberately positioning itself alongside Chinese OTA giant, Ctrip.
Alibaba is estimated to raise about
$15 billion and it may end up being one of the biggest IPOs to go live after Facebook.
On the IPO plan, Alibaba says:
"This (IPO) will make us a more global company and enhance the company’s transparency, as well as allow the company to continue to pursue our long-term vision and ideals.
"Should circumstances permit in the future, we will be constructive toward extending our public status in the China capital market in order to share our growth with the people of China."
NB: Dollar image via Shutterstock.