Alibaba’s overseas expansion has manifested in a mix of investment and integration over the past decade. In 2018, the e-commerce titan bought Pakistan’s e-commerce platform Daraz for an undisclosed amount. It controls the online shopping service Lazada, which is neck to neck with Shopee in Southeast Asia and owns a stake in Turkey’s Trendyol as well as Indonesia’s Tokopedia. The smart distribution centers will come with a suite of Cainiao’s in-house tech like electric control units, software-based programmable logic controllers and a computing solution that promises to combine the capabilities of cloud and the speedy runtime on the edge. Cainiao already operates nine large overseas distribution centers across Europe, Asia and the Americas and has plans to ramp up operations in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Europe.
Logistic network development is a priority in our globalization strategy as logistics is the fundamental infrastructure supporting a high-quality consumer experience based on integrated product supply from cross-border and locally. Cainiao has been developing logistic network in Southeast Asia and Europe, leveraging the commerce use cases presented by Lazada, AliExpress, and the Trendyol.