Alibaba is pumping another $1bn into Lazada, taking its stake in the Southeast Asia ecommerce group to 83 per cent and doubling its bet on one of the fastest-growing — and most fragmented — markets for online shopping.
阿里巴巴(Alibaba)正要向Lazada再投入10亿美元，将其在这家东南亚电商集团所持的股份增至83%，加倍押注于增长最快——也是最碎片化的——在线购物市场之一。
The move by the Chinese tech giant comes as Lazada’s rival Sea, formerly known as Garena and backed by Alibaba rival Tencent, is seeking to establish itself as the region’s dominant technology platform. Sea, valued at $3.75bn in March, last month raised $550m from investors and has filed for a US listing.这家中国科技巨擘采取此举之际，Lazada的竞争对手Sea——原名Garena，受到阿里巴巴的竞争对手腾讯(Tencent)支持——正寻求把自己确立为该地区的主导技术平台。今年3月份时估值达到37.5亿美元的Sea，上月从投资者处筹集到5.5亿美元，并已申请在美国上市。Alibaba, which runs China’s biggest ecommerce platforms, made its first move on Lazada in April last year, paying $1bn for a 51 per cent stake. It bought some new shares and partly replaced European investors Rocket Internet, the Berlin-based start-up incubator, and Tesco, the UK supermarket chain, which each sold down significant stakes. Lazada at that time was valued at $1.5bn.运营中国最大电商平台的阿里巴巴，去年4月首次投资Lazada，斥资10亿美元购得51%股份。它购买了一些新股，同时部分取代了两家欧洲投资者：总部位于柏林的初创企业孵化器Rocket Internet和英国超市连锁乐购(Tesco)，这两家都减持了可观股份。那时Lazada的估值为15亿美元。The latest deal sees Alibaba pay the same amount for a 32 per cent stake — of a bigger share base — and values Lazada at $3.15bn, according to the Chinese group.据阿里巴巴介绍，最新交易意味着这家中资集团将支付相同金额购入32%股份（股票基础有所扩大），并使Lazada的估值达到31.5亿美元。Lazada hosts more than 100,000 local and international sellers selling to 560m consumers.Lazada拥有逾10万家当地和国际卖家，面向5.6亿消费者销售。“The ecommerce markets in [Southeast Asia] are still relatively untapped, and we see a very positive upward trajectory ahead of us. We will continue to put our resources to work in Southeast Asia through Lazada to capture these growth opportunities,” said Daniel Zhang, chief executive of Alibaba.“（东南亚的）电子商务市场仍然相对未开发，我们面对一个非常积极的上升轨迹。我们将继续通过Lazada将资源投入到东南亚，使其发挥作用，抓住这些增长机遇，”阿里巴巴首席执行官张勇(Daniel Zhang)表示。Alibaba has so far concentrated its globalisation efforts in Asia, where it has invested in PayTM of India and into the payment group’s ecommerce unit. That business was last year spun out of PayTM, which is best known for running India’s most popular digital payments platform.
阿里巴巴迄今将全球化努力集中在亚洲，该公司已投资于印度的PayTM以及这家支付集团的电商部门。那块业务去年从PayTM分拆出来；PayTM以运行印度人气最高的数字支付平台而闻名。Southeast Asia is rapidly shaping up as a battleground for both the Chinese players and multinationals like Google and Facebook. The region has 200m digital consumers buying goods or products online, according to Bain & Co, the consultancy, up from 130m the previous year.东南亚正迅速成为中资企业以及谷歌(Google)和Facebook等跨国公司的战场。据咨询公司贝恩(Bain & Co)介绍，该地区有2亿数字消费者在线购物，高于去年的1.3亿。It is the world’s fastest growing region in terms of internet users, according to joint research by Google and Singapore’s Temasek last year, which estimated that the internet economy in the region will be worth $200bn by 2025.根据谷歌和新加坡淡马锡(Temasek)去年联合进行的研究，就互联网用户人数而言，东南亚是世界增长最快的地区。该项研究估计，到2025年该地区的互联网经济将达到2000亿美元规模。However, the market is also highly fragmented. While Lazada and Sea’s Shopee ecommerce site dominate, there are scores of other players with local footholds, including Tokopedia in Indonesia and Kaidee in Thailand.但是，这个市场也高度碎片化。虽然Lazada以及Sea旗下Shopee电子商务网站占据主导地位，但还有其他数十个立足于本地的竞争者，包括印度尼西亚的Tokopedia和泰国的Kaidee。