阿里巴巴将发展目标瞄准农村

虽然中国经济增长速度正在放缓，但是电商巨头阿里巴巴的业绩还是超过了分析师的预期，其12月的利润翻了一番，营收也增长了30%。

在阿里巴巴的收益中，有一大块要归功于阿里巴巴加大了对中国广大农村地区的覆盖，这一块“处女地”为阿里巴巴提供了庞大的商机。

近日，阿里巴巴表示，该公司的“农村淘宝”战略计划已经拓展到了1.2万多个农村。该计划包括在上述农村设立村级服务站，淘宝将在这些服务站中提供上网、网购和物流服务，为这些农村地区的居民提供商品，同时也使这些地区的居民能将本地的产品销售到全国其他地区。比如，阿里巴巴表示，作为该公司农历新年促销计划的一部分，城市居民将可以通过淘宝直接购买到来自农村地区的农产品。阿里巴巴计划在未来三至五年内，至少建立10万个村级服务站。不过该公司并未透露“农村淘宝”项目的任何收益数字。

阿里巴巴CEO张勇在收益电话会议上表示：“我们的战略是把城市地区的商品卖到农村，同时帮助农民将农产品销售给城市居民。我们相信，这在未来将有巨大的潜力。”

阿里巴巴的另一个大赌注，即把欧美发达国家的产品销售给中国日益壮大的中产阶层的战略，似乎也开始奏效了。专门销售国外产品的在线商城“天猫国际”的总销量上季度增长了179%。

近日，可口可乐（Coca-Cola）、星巴克（Starbucks）、露露柠檬（Lululemon）等国际大牌也相继在天猫国际开设了官方门店。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

Despite reports of slowing growth in the Chinese economy, e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba beat analyst expectations, reporting that December profits doubled and revenue increased by 30%.

One of the big takeaways from the company’s earnings was the continued mention of expanding reach into rural China as an untapped opportunity for Alibaba.

The company explained Thursday that it has has set up operations, called Rural Taobao, in over 12,000 rural villages in China. This involved creating Taobao Rural Service Centers, where Alibaba provides internet connections along with purchasing and delivery services that provide goods to consumers in these areas, and allows them to sell their products to other parts of China. For example, Alibaba said that agricultural products from rural China are available to urban consumers as part of a Chinese New Year promotion on the e-commerce site. Alibaba anticipates setting up at least 100,000 of these centers in villages in the next three to five years, but didn’t breakout any revenue numbers from Rural Taobao.

“Our strategy is to sell goods from urban areas to villages, as well as help farmers sell farmer products to people living in the cities,” said Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang on a conference call on Thursday. “This we believe will have a huge potential in the future.”

Alibaba’s other big bet—selling goods from the U.S. and other Western countries to the growing Chinese middle class—appears to be paying off. Tmall Global, an online mall that only sells international goods, saw total sales colume increase 179% in the quarter.

New brands who opened up stores on Tmall included Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Lululemon.