Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has registered a Russian subsidiary as its subsidiary AliExpress expands its hold over the Russian e-commerce market, Kommersant reported last week.
A Russian company named Alibaba.com was registered on May 15, the business daily reported. The information was confirmed by Mark Zavadskiy, General Manager at Alibaba Russia.
“Alibaba Group founded a new company in Russia in order to further expand our business and support our partners, and also to facilitate cooperation with the Russian authorities,” he said.
Almost simultaneously Skolkovo, the international tech hub under completion on the outskirts of Moscow, announced a partnership with Alibaba’s local branch to create the AliExpress Challenge for B2C microelectronics solutions. A memorandum of understanding is to be signed by the two parties at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum later this month.
The AliExpress challenge will allow Skolkovo resident firms to pitch their products to a panel, with the top startups winning access to acceleration programs and additional mentor support. The victors will also have the considerable backing of AliExpress to reach international markets.
The contest will be split into two categories – one for solutions that are still at the idea stage, the other for market-ready products.
The AliExpress Challenge runs through the fall, with the applications being accepted from June 18 through September 25, the Skolkovo Foundation announced.
“We’re working on such an initiative for the first time in the history of AliExpress in international markets, and it’s a great experience working with Skolkovo,” the foundation quoted Zavadskiy as saying.
“Our cooperation with Skolkovo will give the participants the unique opportunity to reach the American and European markets,” Zavadskiy added. “This way we are offering the world the best of what Russian microelectronics developers have to offer.”
Skolkovo expects “no fewer than 100 B2C microelectronics projects from around the country” to take part in the challenge.
Zavadskiy took part in last week’s eDays conference, an international event dedicated to Russian e-commerce and retail technologies, co-organized by East-West Digital News.
Later this month, Jack Ma is expected to attend the St. Peterburg International Economic Forum. As reported by Russian media, Alibaba’s founder keynote will highlight the “New era for commerce and trade, from IT to DT.”
As reported in a recent study by East-West Digital News, AliExpress became the leading e-commerce operating in Russia at least by number of users and fulfilled orders.
