Taobao Mall Drums Up Hype in IPO Run-Up 淘宝商城开放或为IPO造势

By newsdoug on September 20, 2011

Taobao hype marks first step in IPO march It’s only 3 months since Alibaba split its consumer-oriented Taobao Website into two units, and already it’s starting to hype the more promising of the two, the B2C-focused Taobao Mall, in what’s no doubt the run-up to an IPO that could come as soon as next year. At the same time, Alibaba.com (HKEx: 1688) is continuing with its battle to win back credibility following a scandal earlier this year, in a clear divergence of strategy for these two sister companies that are both part of Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group. Let’s look at Taobao Mall first. The 3-month-old company has held what was probably its first stand-alone press conference, in which it boasted it expects its sales volume to double to 200 billion yuan next year, or about $31 billion, and where it announced a new strategy where it will open its site to other online retailers like Wal-Mart-invested (NYSE: WMT) Yihaodian in addition to traditional retail names like Dell. (Nasdaq: DELL) (English article) President Daniel Zhang was a big cagier about Taobao Mall’s profits, only saying the company’s profit margin has reached that of other Chinese Internet companies. But clearly the company is feeling pressure to go to market sooner rather than later to return some investment dollars to companies like Japan’s Softbank, who have been waiting 7 years now for a return on their money. I’d look for this IPO to happen as soon as Taobao Mall can show some meaningful profits, probably sometime next year. Meantime, sister company Alibaba.com continues to be on the defensive, following a scandal earlier this year where bogus retailers were cheating buyers on the company’s B2B site. (previous post) Chinese media are reporting Alibaba.com has embarked on a campaign to verify the identities of all of its sellers, clearly in a bid to try and restore confidence to buyers whose numbers have plateaued and even started to fall since the scandal began earlier this year. (Chinese article) Look for this PR campaign to continue and for Alibaba.com to post more tepid results for the next year until it regains the trust of the online B2B buying community.

Bottom line: Taobao Mall’s admission of online retailers to its site is hype for an IPO as early as next year, while sister site Alibaba.com’s will need at least a year to rebuild its credibility following a recent scandal.

距离阿里巴巴将淘宝商城从淘宝网拆分仅仅过去3个月，聚焦于B2C的淘宝商城比淘宝网更有发展潜力，并且至早明年就可以准备上市。与此同时，阿里巴巴B2B(HKEx: 1688)作为淘宝网和淘宝商城的姐妹公司，仍在努力消除年初中国供应商丑闻带来的负面影响。昨天，三个月大的淘宝商城举行了首场独立身份的新闻发布会，预期2012年交易额目标为2000亿元(合313亿美元)，为今年交易额的2倍。会上还宣布淘宝商城除了像以往那样和传统品牌如戴尔(Nasdaq: DELL)合作外还会与网店结盟，比如沃尔玛(NYSE: WMT)投资的一号店。淘宝商城总裁张勇对其利润守口如瓶，仅仅说与目前的中国互联网公司持平。但是显然公司面临早日上市以回报投资者的压力，软银已经为投资回报等待了7年之久。我认为一旦淘宝宣布其利润达到某个关键数值就会上市，时间可能在明年。与此同时，阿里巴巴B2B年初发生的信任危机导致临阵换将，这一事件的影响至今仍未消除。中国媒体报道，阿里巴巴推出一系列新举措以使入住者重拾信任，但上述公关举措是否能如愿让股票表现回到风波之前的水平，仍不明朗。

一句话：淘宝商城对在线零售商的结盟或许是为了可能在明年达成上市而炒作，与此同时阿里巴巴B2B年内仍要致力于消除中国供应商事件的不利影响。