Chinese tech giant Alibaba named Eddie Wu, currently chairman of commerce divisions of C2C ecommerce platform Taobao and B2C online platform Tmall, to replace Daniel Zhang as CEO on September 10. Wu is an Alibaba co-founder and is credited with helping the company’s development in the digital advertising platform Alimama and Alipay, now part of Ant.
Executive vice chairman and billionaire Joseph Tsai is named as the group’s new chairman of the board.
The reshuffle of the organization is reportedly intended to spur the group’s single-digit sales growth amid a slowdown in China’s economy, plagued with COVID-19 restrictions that were lifted six months ago. In March, Alibaba announced plans to split itself into six smaller units, a step to appease regulators worried about the group’s dominance and market influence.
The six units include Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao/Tmall e-commerce companies, delivery platform Local Life, smart logistics Group Cainiao, Global Digital Business Group and Digital Media Entertainment Group.
Zhang served as head of Alibaba’s cloud business unit since last December, and will serve as CEO and chairman of Cloud Intelligence Group, which is slated to go public within a year. In a statement, Zhang said:
“It’s the right time for a change for me given the importance of Alibaba’s Cloud Intelligence Group, as it moves toward a complete spin-off.”
Zhang was appointed as the group’s CEO in 2015 and was chairman in 2019 following co-founder Jack Ma, who gradually returned to the public spotlight after lying low amid China’s heightened crackdown on Chinese tech companies.
Experts say the cloud division is worth between US$ 41 billion and US$ 60 billion, and the vast amounts of data it manages could set the company as a potential target by regulators. This has fueled speculations this is one of the main reasons behind Alibaba’s move in May to fully spin out of the US$ 12 billion cloud business, despite studies pointing to China’s huge 5G growth potential when combined with cloud.
A study by Omdia states China is on track to add over 600,000 5G base stations and reach 2.9 million by the end of this year.