Weekly News Wrap: Regulations hamper China’s Singles’ Day sales growth; JD looks to ramp up overseas investment
And Future Retail discloses new documents bolstering its case against the Amazon deal.
From Reuters:
After more than a decade of explosive growth, China's Singles' Day, the world's biggest online shopping fest, is losing its gloss and bracing for more modest growth in coming years, hurt by a slower economy and tighter regulatory scrutiny.
E-commerce giant Alibaba Group said on Friday its sales - or gross merchandise value - during the 11 day event grew just 8.5%, the slowest rate ever, underscoring the headwinds for China's tech firms.
GMV had grown by at least double digits every year since Alibaba founded the festival in 2009 and built it into a global online shopping fest, dwarfing Cyber Monday in the United States. Last year, it extended the one-day event to 11.
But the state-backed Securities Daily newspaper criticised the focus on high turnover from sales for being unsustainable, chaotic and incompatible with China's new development path.
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From CNBC:
JD.com plans to increase investment overseas, one of its top executives told CNBC, as Chinese e-commerce giants look to tap international users.
The technology giant has been less aggressive than its rival Alibaba in expanding its presence overseas. But international expansion from both Chinese firms could challenge the e-commerce dominance of Amazon in certain parts of the world
Over the coming years, JD.com will “increase investment in countries that conform to JD’s strategies, no matter if it is on warehousing, logistics or supply chain,” Xin Lijun, the newly-appointed chief executive of JD’s retail business said in Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation.
Xin said JD was carrying out “further strategic analysis in Vietnam and Europe” as potential locations to expand in.
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From Reuters:
Independent directors at India's Future Retail have disclosed new documents in a letter to the country's antitrust watchdog aiming to bolster their case against Amazon.com as they seek to revoke a 2019 deal between the two companies.
A stock exchange filing showed the directors reviewed records related to the 2019 deal between a group unit, Future Coupons, and Amazon, and argued that disclosures by the US company before the Competition Commission of India (CCI) when it sought approval of the deal contradicted Amazon's own internal communications at the time.
Amazon and the CCI did not respond to a request for comment on the disclosure on Sunday.
The two companies' legal dispute, centred around Amazon's deal to invest $200m in Future Coupons, has become a high-stakes battle which could determine the dominant player in India's retail market in the years ahead.
Amazon has successfully used the tie-up to block Future's attempted sale of retail assets to rival Reliance for $3.4b, which the Indian company is banking on to help keep its business afloat.
Read more here.
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