TOKYO, May 23 (Reuters) - Online business-to-business commerce service Alibaba.com Japan plans to double its work force by March 2009 and may go public in the future as it aims to expand domestically with the help of Softbank Corp, its incoming chief executive said on Friday.
Alibaba.com Japan, in which Softbank is set to take a 65 percent stake, hopes to jump-start its five-year Japan operations by using the Internet and mobile conglomerate's marketing power and services like its increasingly popular mobile phones. It also plans to collaborate with Yahoo Japan, the country's biggest Internet firm owned 41 percent by Softbank and one-third by Yahoo Inc, so that business users of the consumer-focused site will subscribe to Alibaba.com Japan.
Alibaba.com Japan, 35 percent of which will be held by Alibaba.com, the Hong Kong-listed arm of privately held Alibaba Group, targets small to midsize businesses in Japan's $1.5 trillion business-to-business e-commerce market. Such businesses account for 25 percent of Japan's export value and 63 percent of its import value, Alibaba.com and Softbank said, and Alibaba.com Japan aims to support them in trading with companies in China, Japan's biggest trading partner.
"Most of Japan's 4.2 million small and medium-sized enterprises have not realised their chance to grow globally," said Makoto Kouyama, who is set to take the helm of Alibaba.com Japan as early as next week after Softbank invests $20 million in it.
"If we can help expand their businesses by offering convenient, sophisticated services, it will in turn be our growth. We see a big business chance," he told Reuters in an interview.
According to data from the telecoms ministry, 49.5 percent of Japanese companies used e-commerce in their procurement and sales at the end of 2007, up 3.8 percentage point from a year ago. The growth was driven by mid-size firms with less than 1,000 employees. Alibaba.com Japan's website now has about 1 million items, and the company plans to add products from the 70 million goods listed on Alibaba.com's English and Chinese sites. Kouyama declined to reveal the company's sales and profit targets. Alibaba.com Japan, which competes with the likes of online mall operator Rakuten Inc, currently has 80 people in China and 35 employees in Japan dedicated to the Japanese site, and it plans to double the number by March 2009 to help support the expansion. Kouyama, who previously headed the Japanese operation of MySpace social network service through a joint venture between News Corp and Softbank, also said Alibaba.com Japan may list its shares in Japan in future to improve brand awareness and gauge its value. "Softbank is regarded as a telecoms company, so if companies like Yahoo (Japan) stay under the blanket of Softbank without listing, no one knows how they are valued," Kouyama said.
"It's hard to gauge the value of Internet companies like us unless we go out on the market. So in that sense, the possibility (of listing) is there."
Alibaba.com's parent Alibaba Group is 39 percent owned by Yahoo Inc and 30 percent by Softbank. Shares in Softbank rose 0.4 percent to close at 1,907 yen. Alibaba.com was up 1.6 percent. ($1=104.09 Yen) (Reporting by Sachi Izumi; Editing by Michael Watson)
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