Alibaba Group, China’s largest e-commerce company, is restructuring its consumer business in an attempt to fight off growing competition in the domestic market and integrate the different parts of the group more closely.
Taobao, the group’s consumer e-commerce company which holds the lion’s share of China’s domestic market, has been split into three separate entities, Alibaba said on Thursday.
The split completes steps taken over the past few years to develop Taobao’s different business segments as China’s e-commerce market matures. But it also gives foreign investors a signal for the potential future direction of the group amid the uneasy relationship between its major shareholders – Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Yahoo Inc and Softbank.