New York-listed Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is considering investing in a fleet of car carriers to support its newly established car business division.
The new car business division, which was established in April this year, will integrate its overall motor-related businesses and provide car owners with various online-to-offline (O2O) motor services, including new car and second-hand car transactions, localized services, and motor financing.
Wang Licheng, general manager of car business division of Alibaba, said the company plans to achieve a car sales volume of 300,000 cars per year, with half of the volumes expected to come from Shanghai.
According to Wang, if sales volume meet expectations, Alibaba plans to invest in one or two 5,000 ceu car carriers to solve the logistics bottleneck.
Wang revealed that Alibaba had negotiations with domestic car logistics specialist Anji Logistics, China Shipping Group and MOL last year, however the prices the companies offered couldn’t meet the expectations of the group.
