On May 14, Alibaba released its Q4 and full-year results for fiscal year 2024. According to this financial report, Alibaba International once again delivered a brilliant report card, with revenue in the quarter increasing by 45% year-on-year, exceeding market expectations for seven consecutive quarters.
In the financial report, there has been a lot of talk about the rapid growth of AliExpress and other highlights, and the Ali International Station, which focuses on B2B, is actually more difficult to ignore. At present, the annual online turnover of the international station is close to 50 billion US dollars, and the scale of B2B exports supported by Ali international station has reached 350 billion US dollars, which is the main track for going overseas in terms of volume.
This earliest business, which has always been known as "Alibaba's eldest son", has continuously launched AI foreign trade products and semi-managed services in the past year, and the momentum of accelerated expansion is not small. It is reported that driven by AI, the SaaS product revenue of Ali International Station increased by 74% year-on-year.
Overseas, according to Data.ai data, in March this year, Ali International Station has risen to fourth in the download ranking of global e-commerce platforms. A B2B platform mainly for overseas corporate buyers can rank among the top four among B2C e-commerce, which shows the influence of Alibaba International overseas.
Recently, the brand research report of a well-known research agency also pointed out that Ali International ranks first in brand recognition among buyers in core markets such as the United States and Germany.
In fact, Ali International Station can still maintain the momentum of accelerated expansion after 25 years, and the reason is not difficult to analyze, which is: AI foreign trade and semi-custodianship.
AI foreign trade: 17,000 small and medium-sized enterprises have ordered to use it
AI is very popular now, but really useful applications are scarce. But when the industry is still debating the development route of large models, Ali International Station has posted an AI application report card this quarter.
At the analyst meeting after the financial report, Alibaba International disclosed that 17,000 small and medium-sized enterprises have ordered to use AI business assistants, and the overseas search volume of AI-optimized products has increased by 37%, and the efficiency has been significantly improved. And this is less than half a year after the official release of AI foreign trade products by Ali International Station.
When the efficiency improvement effect of AI is fully revealed, Ali International Station has begun to open this capability to more domestic trade enterprises, factories and other new merchants. In March this year, Ali International Station released an AI minimalist overseas plan, so that new merchants can also quickly start foreign trade business through AI, and promised to ensure their operational results.
Using AI to lower the threshold of foreign trade, so that more enterprises that could not do foreign trade due to lack of experience and other reasons to join in, this is the clear strategy of Ali International Station. Coupled with the significant role of AI in improving the efficiency of foreign trade business, it has indeed attracted a large number of new merchants.
Driven by AI foreign trade, the overall SaaS product revenue of Ali International Station has increased by 74% year-on-year in the past year.
The reason why AI can be quickly applied on Ali International Station is that foreign trade is an excellent application scenario for generative AI.
The traditional foreign trade link is very long, and it contains a large number of complicated tasks such as product selection and distribution, operation and communication, etc., which have clear goals but high repetitiveness, and also involve multilingual environment, time difference and other problems. Ali International Station realizes that these are actually what AI is good at, and if foreign trade enterprises hand over these to AI, the problem will be solved, and foreign traders can be liberated to do more important things like product development and market selection.
Therefore, the AI products of Ali International Station have been closely integrated with the actual problems of foreign trade from the very beginning, and they are all very practical work such as helping merchants to intelligently select products, send products with one click, intelligently receive overseas customers, diagnose and analyze problems in operation, etc. Moreover, combined with Ali International Station's insight and experience in overseas markets over the years, novices can also become "foreign trade veterans" with one click.
Like Xu Jingqian, who is engaged in machinery export in Yiwu, the new post-00s employees in his factory got the first big order overnight with the help of the AI business assistant of Ali International Station.
In fact, Ali International Station's attitude towards generative AI has always been: don't show off your skills, what matters is how to solve the actual problems of customers.
In a sharing in March this year, Zhang Kuo, president of Ali International Station, used a metaphor: "The most important thing in the world after the birth of the first internal combustion engine is not to make the second and third ...... The 10,000th internal combustion engine, and most importantly: to turn the faster carriage into the first car. ”
AI foreign trade is the process of "making the first car".
Semi-custodial: Targeting new markets
In addition to AI foreign trade, Ali International Station also launched a semi-managed service this quarter. Semi-hosting has been very popular in the field of cross-border e-commerce recently, but this is the first semi-hosting for B2B.
The core difference of the semi-custody of Ali International Station is that the operation autonomy is higher, and under the semi-custody of Ali International Station, the merchant actually entrusts the most complex link of cross-border logistics to the platform; At the same time, it covers a wider range of industries, and more light customized non-consumer goods industries can also do it, which is actually one of the main industries of foreign trade exports.
Coupled with the characteristics of B2B foreign trade itself with better profits and more sustainable operation, the semi-hosting of Ali International Station quickly attracted a large number of merchants to join and quickly issue orders.
Figure: Ali International Station semi-managed investment
At present, in the two months since the semi-hosting of Ali International Station was launched overseas, a large number of sellers have received new customers in the simplest way. Especially in the new trade festival in March, the beginning of the foreign trade season, many cross-border sellers who joined the semi-custody reported that the semi-custody had new customers placing orders every day. It is important to know that in the field of B2B foreign trade, the frequency of orders placed by large purchasing customers is not high, but the simpler and more deterministic procurement experience provided by semi-hosting has become the key to attracting new customers.
In fact, Ali International Station semi-hosting, is intended to be in the new market.
Previously, Zhang Kuo, president of Ali International Station, mentioned in an interview that in the current B2B foreign trade field, in addition to the current mature customization track, there is also a new market at the trillion-dollar level: overseas spot wholesale market.
This market is made up of a large number of retailers and service providers who have higher requirements for a deterministic purchasing experience. The semi-custodian is the deep integration of the supply chain by the platform to help domestic foreign trade merchants meet the needs of these new customers.
For example, Shenzhen Xinzhongtian Electronics Co., Ltd., a new buyer came to buy 1,000 electronic watches in the first half of the trusteeship. They said that in the past, even if they wanted to negotiate such an order with old customers, they had to communicate back and forth several times, but now on semi-hosting, the price of goods, logistics and freight are all fixed prices, when it can be delivered, it is also clearly written, coupled with a clear after-sales guarantee, new customers can also directly place large orders.
At the same time, in some customized industries, there is also a demand for a simpler and more deterministic procurement experience, and Ali International Station is also further expanding the scope of industries covered by hosting services. In fact, behind the semi-custody is the goal of Ali International Station to completely online the entire foreign trade transaction link.
It is conceivable that when foreign trade procurement can be as simple as ordinary people's online shopping, the new customers and new markets that foreign trade merchants can obtain will also be further expanded.