BEIJING: The world’s largest e-commerce platform, China’s Alibaba, is aiming for a record 6 trillion yuan ($912 billion) in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in 2020 from 3.09 trillion this year, Reuters reports, quoting the company.
According to Alibaba founder Jack Ma, the company also wants to quadruple the number of customers to 2 billion by 2036, up from 423 million buyers in 2016.
Ma has pledged to intensify the fight against counterfeit products and intellectual property rights violation.
“I promise you guys that counterfeits, fake products, and intellectual property theft – we are more and more confident than ever that we can solve the problem,” he said.
In April, Alibaba became the world’s largest retailer, surpassing Walmart. The company says its online trading accounts for 10 percent of all retailing in China and has generated 15 million jobs.
Last November, Alibaba hit a record $14.3 billion in sales on Singles’ Day, a Chinese holiday intended to celebrate single life. This is more than double the e-commerce sales in the US from Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday combined. Alibaba has been holding these sales since 2009. November’s $14.3 billion smashed 2014’s total of $9.3 billion in gross sales.
The company also holds the title of the biggest IPO in history, raising $25 billion in four days in September 2014, $7 billion more than Visa and $9 billion more than Facebook and General Motors.
