Alibaba, FedEx Breakup, Amazon Teams
By Cleveland AdminAlibaba Quarterly Results Show 42% Y/Y Sales Growth
Alibaba announced last quarter’s results which showed a 42% increase in revenue Y/Y driven largely by growth in the eTailer’s China eCommerce businesses. This represents strong re-acceleration from last quarter, when total revenues grew 33% Y/Y. Alibaba noted a key driver of this was continued growth in Mobile Monthly Average Users (MAUs), which increased 34 million Q/Q to 755 million. Internationally, Alibaba saw growth to up 22% Y/Y (vs.17% last quarter), driven by strong growth in the eTailer’s Southeast Asian Lazada platform and consolidation of the Turkish Trendyol platform. Management was upbeat in its commentary, noting that despite headwinds from the ongoing trade war, positive demographic trends in China and rapid digitization continued to drive growth in the company’s business.
FedEx Ends Deliveries for Amazon
FedEx announced last week that the parcel delivery giant was ending its domestic ground contract with Amazon, which follows the June announcement that FedEx was ending its airfreight contract with Amazon. While this could pressure Amazon’s delivery network, particularly during peak holiday periods, a WSJ article indicates that FedEx delivered <2% of Amazon.com packages and that Amazon expected no disruption to One-Day Prime Delivery as a result.
Amazon Team Members Broader Responsibilities
Feedback from vendors on our recent LiveCast indicated that nearly 70% of respondents had Amazon employees with broader responsibilities across the organization, with nearly 50% supporting the dot.com portion of their omnichannel accounts. While we recognize the valuable experience found on the Amazon team, we tend to caution firms that pulling them in too many directions can lead to counterproductive results.