Jack Ma has urged employees at Alibaba to learn from one of its closest Chinese rivals as the ecommerce giant he founded tries to find a new path after abandoning parts of its ambitious restructuring plan. “I firmly believe that Alibaba will change and reform,” Ma wrote in a post published on Alibaba’s internal forum on Wednesday and seen by the Financial Times. “I believe that Alibaba employees are always watching and listening,” he said.
He was responding to an employee post about the “stunning” third-quarter financial results from PDD Holdings, which saw Alibaba’s upstart rival nearly double revenue to $9.4bn.
The results sent its shares 18 per cent higher on Tuesday in New York. This gives the group behind Pinduoduo and Temu a market value of $183bn, only just below the $195bn of Alibaba, long China’s biggest ecommerce company.