Alibaba v Tencent: the battle for China’s e-commerce deliveries

IN 2019 RICHARD LIUJDJDJDJD told couriers working for .com that the Chinese e-commerce giant he founded would cancel their base pay after a 2.8bn yuan ($438m) loss the previous year, its 12th consecutive one in the red. Riders would make only a commission on deliveries. If the company did not cut back on spending, Mr Liu warned, it would go bust in two years.Far from collapsing, two years on Logistics, .com’s delivery division, is on a roll, fuelled by a boom in Chinese e-commerce (see chart). Its parent company’s revenues jumped by 39%, year on year, in the first quarter, to 203bn yuan. On May 26th Pinduoduo, an upstart rival that also offers customers delivery by Logistics couriers, reported quarterly sales of 22bn yuan, 239% higher than a year ago.