Alibaba to Buy Remaining Shares in Ele.me

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., a Chinese e-commerce giant, announced on Monday that the company would buy the remaining shares of Ele.me, a major platform in China’s food delivery market, as it competes with Tencent Holdings Ltd. services for online customers.

Alibaba and Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co. Ltd., the e-commerce giant affiliate, currently own approximately 43 percent of Ele.me, and the newest agreement will value at $9.5 billion, according to Alibaba.

Ele.me is part of a fast-growing and competitive e-commerce market in China driven by customers eager to use their smartphones to make purchases from groceries to cinema tickets.

Back in August, Ele.me bought Baidu deliveries from its rival, Baidu Inc. For Alibaba, the latest acquisition enlarges the e-commerce firm’s food delivery empire, which also includes delivery platform Koubei, as it competes with Meituan Dianpin, backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd.

According to Alibaba, Ele.me will still operate under its own brand following the acquisition. However, it will combine some of its functionalities with Koubei.

Meanwhile, as part of the agreement the e-commerce giant will place Wang Lei, Vice President of Alibaba, as chief executive at Ele.me. On the other hand, the current chief executive and founder of Ele.me will become chairperson.

 

Alibaba to Open Car Vending Machine with Ford

Alibaba and Ford will open a car vending machine in China.

The partnership between the companies has led to working on technological opportunities together, and one of them is the car vending machine.

The vending machine, which is called Super Test-Drive Center, is in Guangzhou, China and it allows customers to test drive Ford cars that they want to buy. Meanwhile, the vending machine is unstaffed, it only works with the app, Tmall.

With the use of the app, drivers need to choose a car model that they want, make a deposit electronically, schedule a pickup time and take a selfie so that the vending machine will recognize the driver when they come to get the vehicle.

Meanwhile, the test drive is free as long as the driver has a credit score of 700 or more. However, users who have a Zhima score of below 700 have to pay a fee, according to Alibaba.

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