The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has opened its first European store in Madrid.
Falling under the AliExpress banner, the Spanish shop will function predominantly as a showroom where customers can come and get hands-on experience with more than 1,000 products on offer on the Alibaba platform.
The opening is seen by many as a move to consolidate Alibaba’s grip on the European market and to strengthen its position against Amazon. The competitor’s annual revenue is estimated to be more than four times that of Alibaba, according to Business Insider.
This is not the only business move made recently by Jack Ma’s enterprise. For instance, it has partnered with the online banking platform Turstly to offer European customers additional payment offering.
Alibaba was also reported to be in talks in August to buy Kaola, an e-commerce enterprise, and consolidated its grip of the Chinese-African trade by teaming up with Lagos-based FinTech Flutterwave.
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