Alibaba is to boost its e-commerce business outside China with a $2 billion investment in its Turkish unit Trendyol, Reuters reported, quoting a statement from Trendyol on Monday.
Details: The financial commitment was made during a meeting between Michael Evans, president of Alibaba, and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. While details were not disclosed, the investment is expected to materialize “in the near future,” said Evans.
- Trendyol said in the announcement that the Chinese e-commerce giant intends to establish a data and logistics center in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, and an export operations center at Istanbul airport.
- Alibaba acquired major shares in Trendyol via a $728 million deal in 2018, and has invested a total of $1.4 billion in Turkey to date, according to Evans. Over the past five years, Trendyol, as the country’s largest e-commerce marketplace, saw its customers rise nearly threefold to 30 million. The platform boasts around 250,000 sellers, offering over 200 million items.
- Beyond its business focus on Turkey’s domestic market, the online marketplace made efforts to expand into Azerbaijan in May, a year after Trendyol’s entry into Germany. The platform is also gearing up for launches in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the UK soon, according to a report by Turkish media outlet Daily Sabah.
Context: In 2022, the size of the Turkish e-commerce market grew 110%, rising from 382 billion Lira in 2021 to 801 billion Lira last year, according to research conducted by the Turkish E-Commerce Association (ETİD). E-commerce accounted for a 16.5% share of the retail sector in 2022, in contrast to China’s more than 31%.
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