As 2025 progresses, we have been seeing more e-commerce founders returning to the limelight after being coaxed out of semi-retirement. Jack Ma of Alibaba, owner of the Taobao and Tmall Group, has been spotted at the group’s Hangzhou HQ since late last year, and his appearances are becoming more frequent, including at Freshippo and sometimes at Quark AI. Meanwhile, Richard Liu of JD.com, the e-commerce arch-rival of Taobao and Tmall Group, has also reportedly “returned to the frontline”. Are we seeing e-commerce competition heating up again in China?
Since speaking at the 20th-anniversary event at Ant Group in early December and attending President Xi Jinping’s meeting with business leaders in February, Ma is now a regular at Alibaba’s HQ in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. His speech at the event and visits to the Quark AI office were seen as the driver behind Alibaba’s reported “all in” in AI. Pundits call Alibaba’s recent moves of divesting “non-core” businesses and focusing on e-commerce and “local life” services a “return to form” of “classic Alibaba”.
On the other hand, Richard Liu was reported earlier this month to have been behind the wheel at JD.com in the past year, achieving one of the best recent results with the full-year report of 2024. On 17 March, Liu visited the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and reviewed several AI projects at the campus. On 21 March, he posted a WeChat Moment celebrating the results of the social security JD.com provides to delivery drivers.
Meanwhile, Wang Xing of Meituan and Zhang Yiming both remain active in 2025, and both are working on AI. With the e-commerce market reaching saturation, the competition between platforms is visibly heating up. JD Takeaway recently announced that it has already completed over 1 million orders in just 40 days since launch, taking on Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me. Meanwhile, JD Service+ repair services recently launched on Taobao and Tmall in early March, showing that sometimes working together can be equally as important as competing.
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