LAHORE: Alibaba, amongst the world’s leading e-commerce players is contemplating to purchase Rocket Internet’s online retail unit Daraz in Pakistan.
According to a report by Bloomberg, both sides have entered into talks and settling a price for Pakistan’s leading e-commerce website, a source who declined to be named, said.
The talks are at an initial stage and no specific decisions have been made, the source revealed.
This follows Monday’s reports that Alibaba Group would invest an extra $2 billion in South-east Asian e-commerce firm Lazada Group and tapped a top executive to run the business, as it takes on rivals such as tech titan Amazon in an aggressive expansion in the region.
Last week, AliBaba’s Ant Financial said it would invest $184.5million for a 45 per cent stake in Telenor Microfinance Bank (TMB), a subsidiary of Telenor Group, to further develop TMB’s mobile payment and digital financial services.
The strategic partnership between Telenor Group and Ant Financial combines TMB’s knowledge and local market presence with more than 20 million customers, and Ant’s technology in Alipay, the world’s largest digital payments platform, and other financial services to bring mobile payment and inclusive financial services to individuals as well as small and micro businesses in Pakistan.
In 2017, Pakistani government and Alibaba had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to foster the country’s exports by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) worldwide via e-commerce.
