Alibaba Group Holding Ltd

Founding

On 28 June 1999, Jack Ma, with 17 friends and students founded Alibaba.com, a China-based B2B marketplace site, in his Hangzhou apartment. In October 1999, Alibaba received a US$25 million investment from Investor AB, Goldman Sachs and SoftBank. In 1999, Investor AB owned 6% of the shares. In 2002, Alibaba.com became profitable.

Taobao formation

When eBay announced its expansion into China in 2003, Ma viewed the American company as a foreign competitor and created Taobao as a subsidiary to try and win the domestic market. Taobao gained consumer trust in the Chinese e-commerce market with features like third party verification and offering most services for free before making a return on additional services. Taobao surpassed eBay in 2007, and eBay later closed its unprofitable China Web unit.

Pre-IPO expansion

In 2005, Yahoo! invested in Alibaba through a variable interest entity (VIE) structure, buying a 40% stake in the company for US$1 billion. In 2012, China Investment Corporation led a group of Chinese investors in buying out Yahoo!'s 40% stake and in buying the Alibaba shares that had traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

According to Li Chuan, a senior executive at Alibaba, the company was planning in 2013 to open traditional brick and mortar retail outlets in partnership with Wanda Group, a Chinese real estate company. Additionally, Alibaba purchased a 25% stake in Hong Kong-listed Chinese department store chain Intime Retail in early 2014. In early 2017, Alibaba and Intime's founder Shen Guojun agreed to pay HK$19.8 billion (US$2.6 billion) to take the store chain private. Alibaba's stake—28% from 2014's US$692 million investment—rose about 74% after the deal.

In April 2014, Alibaba invested in Lyft, along with Coatue Management, and Andreessen Horowitz; they led a US$250 million Series D financing round. On 5 June 2014, Alibaba bought a 50% stake of Guangzhou Evergrande F.C. from Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd. in a deal that was worth 1.2 billion yuan (US$192 million).

IPO

On 5 September 2014, Alibaba set a US$ 60- to $66- per-share price range for its scheduled initial public offering (IPO). On 18 September 2014, Alibaba's IPO priced at US$68, raising US$25 billion for the company and investors. Alibaba was the biggest IPO in history, bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. On 22 September 2014, Alibaba's underwriters announced their confirmation that they had exercised a greenshoe option to sell 15% more shares than originally planned.

Alibaba and the underwriters of its IPO were sued in a California superior court in a consolidated class action lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in October 2015 on behalf of investors who purchased Alibaba's American depositary shares alleging violations of the Securities Act. Alibaba reached a settlement agreement in December 2018, subject to court approval, in which it agreed to pay $75 million to settle the lawsuit.

Minor acquisitions

In 2015, Alibaba's Mobile Business Group formed Ali Literature to enter the internet literature sector.

Beginning in mid-2015, Alibaba invested in Paytm, an India-based mobile payment platform.

Alibaba is among the most prominent investors in Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor, which was opened in 2018. Alibaba committed approximately US$320 million for the development of an e-commerce digital hub in the EEC.

In January 2017, Alibaba and the International Olympic Committee jointly announced an $800 million deal that would last until 2028 where the company would sponsor the Olympic Games.

Leadership change

In September 2018, Jack Ma, the main founder of Alibaba, announced that he would step down as chairman in a year's time so he could focus on philanthropy. In response to the announcement, The Economist stated that Ma had a significant impact in China and worldwide. On Tuesday, 10 September 2019, Jack Ma officially stepped down as the chairman of Alibaba, and Daniel Zhang succeeded him at the head of the company. [ citation needed ]

Hong Kong listing

In November 2019, Alibaba raised 12.9 billion in its secondary listing in Hong Kong, which became the world's largest offering that year.

In November 2020, Chinese leader Xi Jinping blocked the Ant Group IPO. Economist Bo Zhuang stated the block was part of the CCP's increased scrutiny of finance and technology companies.

In December 2020, the shares of Alibaba Group suffered a stock price crash to the lowest close in around 6 months, following the antitrust investigation into the company by Chinese regulators. In December 2020, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) stated that it opened an investigation into Alibaba over monopolistic practices. The country's central bank, as well as three other regulators, confirmed in a separate statement that the affiliated Ant Group would also be summoned for discussions over "competition and consumer rights", where regulators instructed the company to return its focus to digital-payments. People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, endorsed the investigation shortly after the announcement, claiming the investigation to be "an important step in strengthening antimonopoly oversight in the internet sphere". As a result, from the antitrust probe, Alibaba lost nearly all of its stock-market gains in 2020, from $859 billion to $586 billion, by the end of December. Jack Ma, co-founder of both Alibaba and Ant Group, vanished from public view when Ant's IPO was suspended in early November, but resurfaced in January 2021 in a 50-second video, appearing briefly via video link at the digitally facilitated Rural Teacher Initiative. As of February 2021, he has yet to be seen in public. The video appearance caused Alibaba stock to increase 7%. Jack Ma made a public appearance in Hangzhou, China in March 2023 where he met with students and teachers at the Alibaba partners-funded Yungu School.

In February 2021, Alibaba sold $5 billion in bonds, the company's third large sale of dollar bonds, issuing four sets priced to yield between 2.143% and 3.251%. The four sets of bonds were $1.5 billion of both 10-year and 30-year debt along with $1 billion of bonds due in 20 and 40 years. The 20-year bonds were designated as sustainability notes.

On 9 April 2021, as part of a Chinese crackdown on big tech, SAMR issued a $2.8 billion fine against Alibaba for anti-competitive practices and ordered Alibaba to file self-examination and compliance reports to the SAMR for three years. This amounted to 12% Archived 3 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine of its 2020 net profit. Critics say the move tightens the Chinese's governments control of tech companies. Alibaba stated that it would dedicate itself to correct its errors and accepted the fine without making any appeal.

On 11 November 2021, it was reported that over the course of its 11-day Singles' Day sales extravaganza, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding received 540.3 billion yuan (S$114.4 billion) in orders, a 14 percent increase over the previous year.

In July 2022, the SEC added Alibaba to a list of companies facing delisting from U.S. stock exchanges if its auditors remain unable to examine Alibaba's books before 2024.

In December 2022, a state-owned enterprise of the China Internet Investment Fund, established by the Cyberspace Administration of China, took a 1 percent golden share investment in two Alibaba subsidiaries that control Youku and UCWeb.

2023 restructuring to present

In March 2023, Alibaba announced its "1+6+N" restructuring plan, which reorganized its business structure into six independently run entities: Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao and Tmall Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network, Local Services group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce, and the Digital Media and Entertainment group. Each business unit would have their own CEO and board of directors and be able to seek their own fundraising and market listings. Under the new "1+6+N" structure, Alibaba also established a Capital Management Committee and a Compliance and Risk Committee. The Wall Street Journal reported on 30 March that Jack Ma engineered this in talks with company CEO Daniel Zhang while he was overseas.

In September 2023, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Ltd., the logistics arm of Alibaba Group, has filed for its Hong Kong initial public offering, potentially making it among the first of the Chinese e-commerce leader's units to go public.

In December 2024, Alibaba announced it would sell Intime Department Store to Youngor Group.

In November 2025, the Financial Times published a report stating that a U.S. national security memo accused Alibaba of providing capabilities to the People's Liberation Army used to target the U.S. Alibaba disputed the report. In January 2026, Texas governor Greg Abbott prohibited Alibaba products and services on all government devices and networks. In June 2026, the U.S. added the company to its list of "Chinese military companies," citing its affiliation with the PRC Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Alibaba subsequently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in an attempt to be removed from the list.