Forbes 'Global 2000' Issue Features Alibaba and Taobao's Match-up Against eBay for Market Leadership

SHANGHAI, China, April 5 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Alibaba, the world's largest global business-to-business e-commerce marketplace, is poised to take on eBay and is the focus of Forbes Magazine's lead article in this month's ''Global 2000'' issue.

''Standing up to a Giant'' profiles Alibaba.com, China's leading e-commerce company. Its consumer marketplace Taobao.com has surpassed eBay's China Web site in just two years. The lead article also details Taobao's significant gain in market share, higher Web site traffic, greater number of product listings, and strong leadership in online payment systems.

Taobao.com has taken over 30% market share from eBay in the last year alone. ''The numbers prove the world is ready for our global online marketplaces, with Alibaba serving businesses and Taobao serving consumers. And with our unique payment solution AliPay, we have a significant advantage over our competitors'', said Alibaba Founder, Chairman and CEO Jack Ma in Alibaba's corporate headquarters in Hangzhou, China.

In addition, the international publication profiles Ma, the creator of China's first Internet company, and credits him for strategically partnering with Masayoshi Son's Softbank of Japan in the US $56 million dollar launch of Taobao.com. Son led the competitive effort that resulted in eBay closing its Japanese auction site. It also details Ma's leadership in Alibaba's rapid rise to an estimated US$5 billion in B2B transactions annually.

The article cites the sharp decline in eBay product listings and migration of power sellers to Taobao as further proof points of Taobao's success.

The Forbes profile is not the first article to feature Alibaba.com. In July, 2000 Forbes featured Alibaba.com as the cover story for its ''Best of the Web: B2B'' issue. Since that time, Alibaba.com has gone on to receive the ''Best of the Web'' award every year, the only online global trading marketplace to receive the honor for five consecutive years.

The Forbes magazine article can be found on page 50 of the April 18th U.S. Global 2000 Edition. It can also be found on the Forbes.com Web site.

About Alibaba.com

Alibaba.com is China's leading e-commerce company. Alibaba.com operates the world's largest online marketplaces for both international and domestic China trade. The company focuses on serving the needs of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Its sites trade between 220 countries and territories across 27 industries.

With 1.2 million registered members, http://www.alibaba.com/ garners almost 50% of its business from North America and Europe. The company also operates China's leading B2B domestic trade site for SME's with 4.8 million registered members; China's leading free C2C domestic auctions site http://www.taobao.com/ with 4.5 million registered members and AliPay, a proprietary online payment platform utilized by Alibaba.com and Taobao backed by China's four largest banks.

Alibaba was founded in 1999 by entrepreneur Jack Ma and is based in Hangzhou, eastern China. It has over 2,000 employees, 13 regional sales offices across China and other offices in Hong Kong, Silicon Valley, Geneva, Shanghai and Beijing.

CONTACT: Jen Farley of Worldwide Communications and Television New York,
+1-212-445-8220, or jen@wctv.com; Josh Kerns, WCTV-Seattle, +1-425-452-5412,
or josh@wctv.com, both for Alibaba.com; Porter Erisman , Vice-President,
Corporate Marketing of Alibaba.com, China Mobile Phone, +86-131-2281-9310, or
porter@alibaba-inc.com

Web site: http://alibaba.com/