Alibaba acquires Daraz to expand its ecommerce platform in South Asia; Nepalese looking forward to a new online experience

Alibaba; a Chinese multinational ecommerce, retail, internet and technology conglomerate has acquired Daraz; South Asia’s largest ecommerce platform. Alibaba Group has bought the entire share capital of Rocket Internet’s Daraz Group.

Daraz; Pakistan based ecommerce platform was founded in 2012. The company today operates its online marketplace in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, SriLanka and Nepal. The deal was made to accomplish Jack Ma’s mission to expand the business in the middle class economy section of South Asia.

With this acquisition, Daraz Group will be able to share the leadership and technological knowhow from the ecommerce giant, Alibaba. This step is likely to drive growth in the South Asian markets which has a combined population of over 460 million.

The financial deal between the companies has not been disclosed. However, Co-CEOs of Daraz Group: Bjarke Mikkelsen, Dr. Jonathan Doerr and CEO of Alibaba Group Daniel Zhang are said to be enthusiastic to transform the online experience in the South Asian market. This step will make Daraz a wholly owned unit of Alibaba Group.

Online shops in Nepal are still in their infancy stage. Online shopping experience to the Nepalese consumers still cannot be defined as a pleasant experience in terms of price, quality and delivery services. However, today’s announcement regarding Daraz’s acquisition by Alibaba has brought hope to many shopping enthusiasts in the country.

Daraz Nepal has been under the leadership of Rajeev Amatya; the founder and managing director of daraz.com.np. It is now an opportunity for the company to bring efficient online experience to Nepalese under the leadership of Alibaba. However, the question remains will a small population of Nepal be noticed in the deal of these two giant ecommerce platforms?

How often do you shop online? Do you think Daraz Nepal will be able to accommodate this step into an entirely new online experience in the country? With this acquisition, do you look forward to shop from Daraz more frequently?

Image sources: techcrunch.com and daraz.com