Alibaba, China's largest online retailer, is negotiating with banks as it looks to accumulate $5 billion in loans to fund various corporate purposes. This comes amid efforts by several Chinese tech companies looking for new funding to fuel their ongoing expansion efforts.
A bullet loan constituted by funds raised offshore and with a maturity of five years will be Alibaba's main source of its general corporate funding that includes refinancing, Fortune reported. Such is meant to ensure the company's place at the top of China's e-commerce industry.
Tech giant Alibaba is currently facing stiff competition from its domestic rivals, particularly Tencent. Yibada reported that the WeChat creator is seeking to raise $2 billion for a new debt funding endeavor, as it moves to monetize several functions of China's most popular instant-messaging application.
Nonetheless, Alibaba can only expect its rivals to try harder, considering that its e-commerce platforms Tmall and Taobao continue to grow from strength to strength. To sustain the gains from those endeavors, the online retailing company looks to invest more into venturing forth in logistics and cloud computing.
Such desire to raise new funds highlights Alibaba's consistent desire to dominate e-commerce not just in China, but also worldwide. As more people rely on social media for consumer preferences, the company can only benefit from deeper sources to fund its e-tail market ambitions.
With an eye for developing innovations set to change the e-tail market over the next decade, Alibaba takes on a "startup approach" to dealing with its retail partners worldwide. The extensive use of social media as the backbone for determining consumer preferences stands as the company's focus.
Once such developments meet considerable success, Alibaba can expect to have more potable opportunities for expansion, paving the way to make it a reckonable force in e-commerce beyond Chinese borders.