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Tag: etail

  • Alibaba Co-Founders Pledge Shares for Loans

    Alibaba Co-Founders Pledge Shares for Loans

    Alibaba co-founders Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai are reportedly pledging their shares in the Chinese e-commerce giant in exchange for significant loans from global banks.

    The two tech billionaires have pledged their shares to banks including UBS, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs, according to a «Financial Times» report citing company documents.

    The shares pledged were made by offshore companies controlling more than half of Ma and Tsai’s stake in Alibaba – 5.8 percent as of December valued at $35 billion – through the documents did not disclose the number of shares pledged.

    The share-backed loans mark a stark contrast with Jack Ma’s positioning just nine months ago when he was originally due to be a beneficiary of Ant’s listing before Beijing stepped on the brakes for what would have been the world’s largest IPO in history.

    Since then, regulators have ordered heavy restructuring for Ant while Alibaba saw its share prices drop one-third alongside a $2.8 billion fine in April over monopolistic practices.

    Ma and his affiliates currently do not have any loans outstanding collateralized by the company’s shares. Tsai’s outstanding share-backed loans were easily manageable with prudent loan-to-value ratios to provide a substantial cushion against a potential margin call.

  • Tiki raises $43.5 mln via corporate bonds

    Tiki raises $43.5 mln via corporate bonds

    E-commerce platform Tiki has raised VND1 trillion (nearly $43.5 million) over the last three months by issuing corporate bonds.

    Issued from 16 March to June 13, the bonds are non-convertible with a fixed interest rate of 13 percent per annum, one of the highest rates in the local market.

    Over 97 percent of Tiki bonds’ buyers are Vietnamese individual professional investors. Two domestic institutional investors and two foreign investors also bought the bonds.

    Tiki will use the VND1 trillion to increase its working capital, expand warehouses, invest in subsidiaries, and fund advertisement and marketing campaigns, among others.

    After suffering losses in recent years, Tiki still has to spend big to grab market shares from rivals like Shopee, Lazada, and Sendo.

    Tiki reported losses of over VND750 billion in 2018, and more than VND320 billion in 2019.

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  • E-commerce platform Leflair set for Q3 comeback

    E-commerce platform Leflair set for Q3 comeback

    E-commerce platform for branded goods Leflair is expected to resume operations under a new owner in Q3.

    The U.S.-based Society Pass Incorporated announced Wednesday it had bought Leflair and other intellectual properties, including the domain name, from a company in Hong Kong.

    The revived Leflair will expand operations to other Southeast Asian markets next year, Society Pass Inc. said.

    Society Pass is an e-commerce startup that specializes in connecting consumers with suppliers in Southeast Asia and South Asia. In Vietnam, Society Pass currently runs Sopa, an e-commerce platform for foods and drinks and gastronomy, and #Hottab, a supplier of solutions and marketing connections for users’ data management.

    Leflair was established in 2015 by two French young entrepreneurs, Loic Gautier and Pierre-Antoine Brun. It acted as an e-commerce platform for branded goods and flash sales. It did not operate as an online marketplace, but worked directly with brands and official distributors in Vietnam and overseas.

    In four years ending in 2019, it secured over 120,000 clients and made net revenues of tens of millions of dollars a year. It ceased operations early 2020. Co-founder and COO of Leflair, Brun, had told suppliers then that the firm had not settled debts totaling $2 million.

    Society Pass said it has nothing to do with Leflair’s old legal entity in Vietnam as also the two individuals who’d co-founded it earlier.

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  • Amazon, Alibaba race to recruit Vietnamese merchants

    Amazon, Alibaba race to recruit Vietnamese merchants

    Global giants Amazon and Alibaba are racing to recruit more Vietnamese vendors on their platforms seeking to boost their share of a booming e-commerce market.

    Amazon saw the number of Vietnamese merchants exporting at least $1 million worth of goods from Vietnam triple last year. The surge was driven by demand for tools, kitchenware, handicrafts, home goods, and apparel.

    “Vietnamese sellers have enriched our global product selection,” Gijae Seong, head of Amazon Global Selling in Vietnam, told Nikkei Asia.

    Amazon Global Selling is a business set up to recruit more Vietnamese merchants on Amazon, seeking to boot e-commerce trade between Vietnam and its largest export market the U.S.

    The company opened a Hanoi office in March to train new sellers, adding to its Ho Chi Minh City branch.

    Seong said companies “have competitive advantages in manufacturing” in Vietnam, where a wave of factories have relocated from China to sidestep the trade war with the U.S. and to reduce other costs and risks.

    China’s Alibaba has also been making moves to have more Vietnamese sellers.

    In March, a company representative said that it planned to have over 10,000 Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises selling on its platform by 2025.

    It has been working with government authorities since last year to run training programs for Vietnamese vendors.

    As of March, over 300 companies have been provided consultancy in online cross-border sales.

    The competition between the two giants is heating up as e-commerce booms in Vietnam with rising demand for online shopping amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

    It’s e-commerce market expanded by 18 percent last year to $11.8 billion, the only country in Southeast Asia to record double-digit growth amid the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Vietnam e-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency.

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  • Indonesia’s Bukalapak aiming for up to $800 million in IPO

    Indonesia’s Bukalapak aiming for up to $800 million in IPO

    Indonesian e-commerce firm Bukalapak is keen to raise as much as US$800 million in an initial public offering (IPO) in August, two people with knowledge of the matter said, the first of two big tech listings in Jakarta this year that will add long-sought luster to the local bourse.

    A mid-year debut could see it become Indonesia’s biggest listing in 10 years and the largest ever for the country by a startup. But those milestones will likely later be overtaken by the planned listing of GoTo – a new company to be formed by the merger of e-commerce rival Tokopedia and ride-hailing and payments firm Gojek.

    Tapping a sharp pick-up in investor interest in Southeast Asia’s rapidly expanding technology sector, Bukalapak, the country’s No 4 e-commerce firm, is aiming to sell 10 to 15 percent of the company and wants a valuation of between US$4-5 billion, the people said.

    A confidential listing prospectus has been submitted to the Indonesia stock exchange, one of the sources said.

    Proceeds from the offering could range between US$500 million and US$800 million depending on investor demand and market conditions, said the sources who were not authorized to speak on the matter and declined to be identified.

    Bukalapak, which said in 2019 it was valued at more than US$2.5 billion, declined to comment.

    The 11-year-old startup which claims to have more than 100 million users has a plethora of big-name investors backing it including Microsoft, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, local media conglomerate Emtek, the investment arm of Standard Chartered, and South Korean web portal Naver Corp.

    Bukalapak was originally aiming to raise US$300 million from its domestic listing before looking to merge with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in the United States, but it is now focusing solely on its IPO, one of the sources said.

    The listing, which sources say is set to take place mid-August, is a victory for Indonesia’s bourse which has been conducting an extensive charm offensive to convince the country’s thriving startups to list locally instead of heading to the US.

    Stagnant for many years, Indonesia’s total IPO deal value took a further hit during the coronavirus pandemic, more than halving in 2020 to US$470 million, Refinitiv data showed. So far this year, 15 companies have raised a combined US$125 million via IPOs.

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  • Shinsegae, Naver win bidding battle for EBay South Korea

    Shinsegae, Naver win bidding battle for EBay South Korea

    South Korean retail giants Lotte Shopping and Shinsegae Group have submitted separate letters of intent for online marketplace eBay Korea, the retailers’ spokesmen confirmed on Monday.

    It is a deal that will almost certainly shake up the country’s e-commerce retail segment, potentially propelling one of the country’s largest retailers into becoming the leading omnichannel operator in South Korea.

    SK Telecom, South Korea’s biggest mobile carrier, and private equity firm MBK Partners, the largest shareholder of discount store chain Homeplus, reportedly dropped out of the race to acquire eBay Korea, which has been up for sale since last year.

    This week’s formal bidding marks the second attempt to divest its interests by eBay Korea – which represents about 11% of global sales within the U.S.-based eBay corporation – and it wants at least $4.43 billion, a price that is looking increasingly attainable.

    South Korea’s total e-commerce transactions jumped 25% last year according to Trade Ministry estimates and eBay Korea represents about 12.8% of South Korea’s e-commerce market, just trailing Coupang at 13% and market leader Naver with 18%. Its revenue is estimated at $1.17 billion, with an operating income of $76 million.

    Coupang listed on the New York Stock Exchange in March, becoming the largest Asian company since Alibaba to go public in New York and raising $4.6 billion. Founded by billionaire Bom Kim, a Harvard business school dropout, Coupang is now the country’s most valuable start-up with a market capitalization of more than $60 billion, backed by Softbank’s Vision Fund.

    By contrast, Lotte and Shinsegae’s market shares in the country’s e-commerce sector are estimated at just 5% and 3% respectively and the takeover of eBay Korea by either could reshape the country’s online retail segment and fast-track the winning bidder into a market-leading position. Both have struggled to catch up with the major online competitors, especially after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    However, the picture is complicated. Naver could be one of the biggest beneficiaries if Shinsegae is successful as it is believed to be offering support in financing any acquisition. The retailer and portal established a strategic alliance in March and Shinsegae could switch to Naver Pay as the payment platform for three e-commerce websites operated by eBay Korea: Gmarket, Auction and G9. At present, eBay Korea uses its own online payment system called Smile Pay.

    Top South Korean cellphone carrier SK Telecom and retail group E-Mart were still among the remaining suitors as the preliminary round of bids sought by the U.S. parent closed 16 March.

    Indeed, SK Telecom had been the leading candidate. The group also operates the online platform 11Street through a subsidiary, making SK Telecom the fourth-biggest e-commerce provider. But 11Street has struggled to grow, leading SK Telecom to partner with Amazon AMZN 0.0% in November in a collaboration initially limited to 11Street hosting Amazon products, but likely to expand in scope.

    Meanwhile, Lotte will no doubt view the purchase of eBay Korea as a springboard for rebuilding the group’s online business. In April 2020, the group merged the e-commerce sites of its department stores, supermarkets, electronics shops and other physical retail affiliates under one shopping platform called LotteON but it has failed to make much headway.

    While all the potential suitors have refused to give much away, Kang Hee-tae, CEO of Lotte Shopping, admitted during a spring shareholder meeting: “We’re certainly interested.”

    Launching in 2000, eBay Korea quickly grew and last year earned around $75 million in operating profit. But eBay Korea has been squeezed by rivals in recent years, while activist investors like Elliott Management have urged eBay to shed assets with poor growth prospects.

    The U.S. parent’s hope of securing a lucrative deal initially looked ambitious but then Coupang went public successfully, boosting its hopes.

    Whoever wins the battle for eBay Korea, the fact that the rivals are both major retail players should heat up the market and could lead to an array of collaborations and partnerships to fight scale with scale. South Korea is on the brink of the biggest online shake-up since eBay announced its arrival over two decades ago.

  • South Korean retail firms Lotte and Shinsegae bid for EBay Korea

    South Korean retail firms Lotte and Shinsegae bid for EBay Korea

    South Korean retailers Lotte Shopping and Shinsegae Group entered separate binding bids for eBay’s South Korean business, the retailers’ spokesmen said on Monday.

    eBay Korea – South Korea’s third-largest e-commerce firm with a 12.8% market share in 2020, according to Euromonitor – is on sale for what eBay hopes could be up to 5 trillion won ($4.5 billion), analysts said.

    The retailers’ spokesmen declined to comment on the terms of their bids. An eBay Korea spokeswoman also declined to comment.

    Local retail giants Lotte and Shinsegae have struggled to catch up to leading competitors like South Korea’s No. 1 e-commerce firm Coupang in the fast-growing online shopping sector, especially after the onset of COVID-19.

    South Korea’s online shopping transactions were worth 161 trillion won in 2020, accounting for a record 27.2% of total retail transactions, up from 21.4% in 2019.

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  • JD.com first-quarter revenue exceeds expectation

    JD.com first-quarter revenue exceeds expectation

    China’s JD.com’s first-quarter revenue beat Wall Street estimates as growth remained robust in the domestic e-commerce sector following the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The Beijing-based company has joined rivals Pinduoduo and Alibaba Group in racking up double-digit sales growth during the pandemic, as people flocked to e-commerce websites to shop for everything from groceries to luxury goods.

    Net revenue at JD.com, China’s largest e-commerce company by revenue, rose 39 percent to US$31.57 billion in the quarter ended March 31, topping analysts average estimate of $29.8 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

    Sales in its product segment, which includes online retail sales, rose nearly 35 percent to $27.2 billion in the quarter.

    Popular brands like Starbucks and sports-retailer Decathlon, along with luxury fashion brands such as Marni and John Lobb, launched flagship stores in the quarter on JD.com’s e-commerce platform, which, along with those of rivals, has seen strong demand during and after the pandemic.

    JD.com’s earnings beat comes on the heels of a major regulatory crackdown on Alibaba Group.

    In April, Chinese anti-monopoly authorities fined the e-commerce giant a record $2.75 billion for engaging in a practice known as “choose one from two,” wherein platforms penalize merchants for listing products on multiple sites.

    Despite how that penalty targeted a rival, the uncertain regulatory environment has dampened investor sentiment across China’s internet sector.

    US-listed shares of JD have dropped about 13 percent since news of the fine on Alibaba was announced.

    Concurrent with the fine on Alibaba, JD withdrew its initial public offering application for its fintech subsidiary JD Digits from the Shanghai Stock exchange.

    However, the company’s logistics division is set to raise up to $3.4 billion in an upcoming Hong Kong IPO.

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  • Lazada to play key role in the next Great Singapore Sale

    Lazada to play key role in the next Great Singapore Sale

    The Great Singapore Sale (GSS) will take an omnichannel format this year, with Lazada as its official e-commerce platform – a move that its organizers said is timely as the country returns to stricter Covid-19 measures and shoppers are encouraged to stay home.

    The GSS will run from June 6 to July 7 and will showcase products across different categories such as groceries, technology, health and beauty, and sporting goods.

    According to the Singapore Retailers Association (SRA), small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) can benefit from Lazada’s technology infrastructure, payments gateway, and delivery solutions from its logistics partners, eliminating costly challenges retailers face when selling online.

    In addition, a new key feature will let shoppers will be able to pick up their purchases at the Lazada seller’s physical store, allowing retailers to utilize a “hybrid” model with both online and offline outlets.

    Each retailer will also have a dedicated account manager to help them navigate features such as live streams, games, and flash sales.

    SRA President, R Dhinakaran, said that as an incentive for trying out the platform, retailers do not have to pay commission for the first three months of using Lazada.

    “The attractive ‘0% commission’ offer for the first three months extended by Lazada for all new LazMall sellers is our way to incentivize retailers, especially SMEs, to go online and try out the Lazada e-commerce platform to generate sales, build on their brand awareness and learn new marketing tools, such as LazLive to engage shoppers online interactively,” said Dhinakaran.

    “The Great Singapore Sale is a national institution and sentimental for Singaporeans and those who remember flying into the country to enjoy the sales,” said James Chang, CEO at Lazada Singapore.

    “By supporting sellers with the tools they need to move their businesses online, we’re helping them be prepared for the future – both during the pandemic and beyond.”

    The 27-year-old shopping affair first went online last year as one of the main events in the Singapore Tourism Board’s SingapoRediscovers campaign. SRA’s eGSS GoSpree platform hosted the eGSS 2020, which combined retailers’ products and guided shoppers to the merchants’ e-commerce sites to make purchases.

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  • Disputes keep pace with e-commerce growth

    Disputes keep pace with e-commerce growth

    As Vietnam’s digital economy grows, so does the incidence of disputes between online sellers and buyers. The e-commerce market grew by 16 percent to $14 billion in 2020 and is expected to be worth $52 billion by 2025, according to a report by Google. The number of disputes is also growing rapidly, with 24.4 percent of sellers embroiled in disputes last year,a survey by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) found.

    The Vietnam E-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency said it handled over 250 cases of e-commerce violations last year like unregistered websites, selling low-quality products, and assuming false business identities to cheat consumers.

    Besides, e-commerce platforms took down over 17,400 online stores and 34,600 products in the first five months of 2020, according to the agency.

    Nguyen Anh Duong, head of the general research department at CIEM, said though e-commerce platforms have procedures for receiving customer complaints and settling disputes, they can only handle sellers’ violations by closing the stores and cannot to make them compensate customers they cheated.

    Experts said the demand for an online dispute resolution (ODR) system in e-commerce is growing since many enterprises and individuals do business online.

    But Vietnam lacks a clear legal framework for the ODR, and experts said it is needed immediately so that an ODR system could be deployed.

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  • Doors open wider for Vietnam exports to the US

    Doors open wider for Vietnam exports to the US

    A large demand for agricultural produce and electronics products as well as rising e-commerce potential give Vietnamese exporters greater opportunities in the U.S. market, experts say.

    The U.S. is a market with much potential for Vietnamese companies, especially as Vietnam has been able to keep the Covid-19 pandemic under control, said Nguyen Huu Tien, director of the HCMC Investment and Trade Promotion Centre.

    The U.S. was Vietnam’s largest export market in the first four months with the value of shipments surging 50 percent year-on-year to $30.3 billion.

    Top export categories included machinery and equipment, textile and garment, and computers and electronics.

    Last year, Vietnamese exports to the U.S. ranked third in Asia after China and Japan.

    Ken D. Duong, director of international law firm TDL, said that traditional categories such as agriculture produce and fisheries were posting strong figures despite the pandemic.

    U.S. companies have stopped purchasing some hardwood products from China and are looking for alternative markets, he said, adding that last year, many Vietnamese companies were able to take advantage of this and got large orders.

    Many Vietnamese-Americans are looking for suppliers in Vietnam to export products to the U.S., he added.

    There are a lot of opportunities for electronics export because a number of American and Taiwanese firms have established factories in Vietnam to research and develop internet of things products.

    “There are signals that indicate that Vietnam could become a hub for researching and manufacturing advanced tech products,” Duong said.

    Amazon Global Selling Wednesday announced a new campaign in partnership with the Vietnam e-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency (iDEA) that would help Vietnamese sellers sell more products on Amazon.

    But other experts said there were challenges that Vietnamese exporters face, such as trademarks. They cited the latest example of a Vietnamese rice brand, ST25, which won an international contest as the world’s best variety, being trademarked by a U.S. company.

    Duong said that usually it costs $1,000-1,800 to register a trademark in the U.S. Around 50 percent of mid-sized Vietnamese companies in the U.S. register their brand and the ratio is just 10 percent for small firms.

    Vietnamese suppliers need to understand U.S. regulations on intellectual property to step up in the global supply chain, he added.

    Dang Hoang Hai, head of the iDEA, said that as many Vietnamese sellers are reluctant to export their products to the U.S. via e-commerce, his organization will provide more training to help hundreds of small and medium companies sell their products on Amazon.

    Although there has been speculation about the U.S. rejoining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), U.S. officials have said that this would not happen in the short term.

    Mary Tarnowka, executive director of American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, cited a report by a Fulbright University professor to show that U.S. President Joe Biden will not consider signing another free trade agreement until the middle of his term.

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  • How operators can accelerate industry transformation in an e-commerce cloud-network era

    How operators can accelerate industry transformation in an e-commerce cloud-network era

    The fourth industrial revolution, led by enabling technologies such as IoT, AI, cloud computing, and big data, serves as the impetus for enterprises to migrate their services to the cloud. Fueled by countries’ tech imperative and national strategy to digitalize economies and societies, enterprise cloud adoption is poised to grow, with IDC predicting that 85% of enterprises will have deployed new digital infrastructure in the cloud by 2025.

    As cloud applications evolve and become increasingly distributed, enterprises will strategically upgrade from single cloud to multi-cloud and hybrid cloud (private cloud + public cloud). Consequently, enterprise network requirements will have to change, evolving from traditional “fast cloud, slow network” to intelligent cloud-networks with integrated cloud-network scheduling to facilitate e-commerce. In addition, enterprises will have to move away from “good cloud, poor network” to deliver consistent experience to users.

    Faced with increased competition from OTT cloud providers, operators must upgrade existing cloud network operation systems and leverage network advantages to chart growth in the cloud era.

    Key challenges operators face when upgrading to cloud-network operation

    Compared with OTT cloud providers, operators face greater challenges when upgrading to cloud-network operations. For a start, the current experience offered by the operator’s private line products leaves much to be desired when matched against user-centric products offered by OTT cloud providers. While OTT cloud providers offer cloud features such as real-time provisioning, pay-per-use, online subscription, and network visualization, network-centric operators must evolve from manual processing based on tickets to automate processing to reduce long service provisioning, amongst other upgrades.

    Given their larger and more complex network layers, operators also tend to encounter more technical issues when ensuring quality-guaranteed virtual networks. Finally, operators have to overcome a lack of integrating standards and specifications, interface customization among systems, and excessive BSS, OSS, and controller vendors – all of which add complexity to system integrations and delay service rollouts.

    Recommendations for operators to build competitive cloud-networks

    COVID-19 has fast-tracked enterprise cloud adoption by two to three years and accelerated digtialization across industries. China’s online education industry, for instance, has reported growth as online learning products garnered more than 300 million users when schools shuttered for months. In the wake of COVID-19, many provinces started to embrace a digital-first approach, with cloudification leading change across industries.

    For instance, China Telecom Ningxia became the first operator to adopt an intelligent cloud-network to achieve multi-cloud interoperability in the healthcare sector. Tapping on this capability, many small and medium-sized hospitals in Ningxia now rely on technologies such as medical imaging cloud to leverage resources in larger-sized hospitals to provide telemedicine consultations.

    For operators to seize growth in a rapidly-evolving cloud environment, Guo Dazheng, president of NCE Data Communication Domain at Huawei recommends the following:

    1. Improve cloud-network operations in three areas

    Firstly, operators seeking to develop cloud-network services should deliver integrated cloud-network scheduling capable of producing networks as responsive as clouds. Secondly, operators should fully exploit the wide coverage of operator networks to provide cloud access connections with guaranteed SLAs and deliver consistent cloud and network experience. Thirdly, operators can offer enterprise users one-stop subscription of cloud-network products and comprehensive e-commerce service experience.

    1. Upgrade cloud-network IT architecture across three layers

    To drive comprehensive service automation and e-commerce operations on the cloud-network, while also maximizing the network operation and localization service advantages of operators, systematic technology transformation must occur at three layers: the network infrastructure layer; network management and control layer; and network operation layer.

    At the network infrastructure layer, protocols should be simplified. As such, complex protocols in traditional network should be replaced by an intelligent cloud-network that offers two simplified alternatives – the EVPN and SRv6. As a next-generation SDN network enabling protocol, SRv6 helps intelligent management and control systems achieve centralized path computation and cross-domain one-hop through while avoiding VPN concatenation.

    At the intelligent management and control layer, network-as-a-service (NaaS) should be deployed to counter complex integration in conventional NMSs. Utilizing NaaS technology, the intelligent cloud-network provides tenant-level service-oriented interfaces for the OSS, while shielding technical details relating to the network. As a result, tenant network provisioning and adjustment can be completed with fewer parameters to significantly simplify OSS integration.

    Finally, the network operation layer should integrate conventional OSS and BSS functions, as well as multi-cloud integration aggregation, cloud access connection, and other tenant portals related to cloud-network products. This architecture invokes the network service capabilities of the intelligent management and control layer through service-oriented interfaces, while one-stop subscriptions to cloud-network products provide tenants with an ideal e-commerce shopping experience. Long service provisioning timelines characteristic of traditional operations that are ticket-driven and laden with manual workloads will also be significantly reduced.

    1. Integrate cloud-network operation systems as a collective industry effort

    In the absence of unified architectural standards, the industry currently faces complicated OSS/BSS integrations and long integration testing times. To address this, Huawei is committed to building an integration lab capable of connecting OSS/BSS vendors, operators, and scientific research institutes. This integration lab is a one-stop portal where all users can gain OSS/BSS integration experience, study the intelligent cloud-network solution and OSS/BSS success cases, or apply for resources for interconnection testing to achieve win-win for all stakeholders in the OSS/BSS value chain. With an OSS/BSS integration ecosystem and streamlined OSS/BSS service processes, more operators can replicate China Telecom Ningxia’s success in efficiently developing network convergence capabilities for intelligent cloud-network projects.

    Toward next-generation intelligent cloud-networks

    Though still in its infancy stage, intelligent cloud-network IT architecture is an important enabler as operators look to power emerging technologies across industries.

    Moving forward, Huawei looks forward to working closely with operators, OSS/BSS partners, and industry alliances to deliver integrated cloud-network scheduling and consistent cloud-network experience. Doing so will not only drive meaningful change across thousands of industries but also ease operators’ transition from traditional ICT services to future-proof DICT services.

     

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  • Online supermarket concept Supie to launch in Auckland

    Online supermarket concept Supie to launch in Auckland

    Online supermarket Supie is set to open its virtual doors in Auckland next month, aiming to change the way Kiwis shop for groceries.

    The membership-based supermarket will house more than 2500 products sourced from local growers and food producers. Supie also offers sustainable delivery where all packaging is recyclable or reusable. The brand implements zero-waste ordering methods which ensure its customers receive the freshest produce.

    “The majority of the time, when you order your product is still in the ground,” the company says on its website.

    Founded by Sarah Balle, Supie is expected to compete directly with traditional supermarkets, providing a smart and more accessible solution for Kiwis during the post-Covid era.

    “We’re a small team of passionate Kiwis with big ambitions to make a true impact,” said Saral Balle. “We believe food is the most powerful force for change.”

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  • Angry Indian traders counter Amazon summit with own event

    Angry Indian traders counter Amazon summit with own event

    Thousands of Indian small businesses will organize an event this week in protest at the business practices of foreign e-tailers like Amazon.com taking a dig at the U.S. group’s summit with their own event.

    Starting Thursday, Amazon is organizing a virtual summit in India named “Smbhav,” which phonetically means “possible” in Hindi, to showcase opportunities offered by the U.S. firm to get small businesses to expand and sell online.

    Trader groups representing 600,000 sellers said in a statement they will at the same time launch a summit titled “Asmbhav,” or “impossible,” including an award ceremony to pin the blame on those who they think have hurt their businesses.

    Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Indian traders, who are a crucial part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s support base, have long alleged that Amazon and Walmart Inc’s Flipkart benefit a few big sellers and that the companies engage in predatory pricing that harms their businesses. The companies say they comply with all laws.

    A Reuters special report published in February revealed Amazon has for years given preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its Indian platform and used them to circumvent the country’s strict foreign investment regulations.

    Amazon has said it “does not give preferential treatment to any seller on its marketplace.”

    The Smbhav event will include more than 70 speakers and aims to allow small businesses to learn how to grow their businesses in India – a key growth market for Amazon.

    The event “puts forth how Amazon and our partner’s leverage digitization, technology & our ecosystem to drive infinite possibilities for a Digital India,” its website said.

    In a statement, trader groups including the All India Mobile Retailers Association said the Amazon event was positioning it as a friend and guide to small sellers, but argued small traders had been harmed by discriminatory practices of foreign e-commerce firms.

    The latest dispute comes as India also considers revising foreign investment rules for e-commerce which could force companies like Amazon to rework the relationships it has with big sellers.

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  • Alibaba fined US$2.75bn for anti-monopoly violations by Chinese regulators

    Alibaba fined US$2.75bn for anti-monopoly violations by Chinese regulators

    Chinese regulators have fined Alibaba 18 billion yuan ($2.75 billion) – around 4 percent of its revenues in 2019 – for violating anti-monopoly rules and abusing its dominant market position.

    The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said that after an investigation launched in December, it had determined that Alibaba Group had been “abusing market dominance” since 2015 by preventing its merchants from using other online e-commerce platforms.

    It said the practice violates China’s anti-monopoly law by hindering the free circulation of goods and infringing on the business interests of merchants.

    The SAMR ordered Alibaba to make “thorough rectifications” to strengthen internal compliance and protect consumer rights.

    The company said in a statement posted on its official Weibo account that it “accepted” the decision and would resolutely implement SAMR’s rulings. It said it would also work to improve corporate compliance.

    The practice of preventing merchants from listing on rival platforms is a long-standing one. The market regulator spelled out in rules issued on February that it was illegal.

    Alibaba has also been under heavy scrutiny since its founder Jack Ma criticized China’s regulatory system in October.

    Ant Group, Alibaba’s fintech arm, also saw its $37 billion listing plans dramatically suspended by authorities in November.

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