Enter the dragon, or Alibaba on NYSE
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Enter the dragon, or Alibaba on NYSE

Alibaba Group to become the biggest debut in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. The global e-commerce giant is set to list on Wall Street in mid-September 2014. Where has Alibaba.com won the greatest recognition among internet users?

The latest Gemius analysis, taking into account such factors as the number of users visiting websites and their socio-demographic profiles, provides an answer to this question. The study includes the European countries where the research covers websites of global reach, i.e. Belarus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary. The data concerns the first half of 2014, and was conducted on internet users aged 15 plus.

It turns out that Alibaba.com is mostly visited by users coming from only 5 of the above-mentioned group of countries, i.e. from Denmark, Poland, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine. In the remainder, the number of internet users who entered the analysed auction service is insufficient even to be recorded in the research (in order to include data on the number of users visiting a website in the research, it must be entered by a certain minimum quantity of persons in a month).

The analysis shows that Turkey is one of the countries studied by Gemius where Alibaba.com enjoys the greatest amount of audience members. On average, the website is browsed by 4 per cent of internet users from that country. On the other hand, it is least popular in Poland, where it noted an average of 1 per cent of users in a month.

“This proves how entrepreneurial the Turkish nation is. The proximity of important ports and large market outlet are the two factors nourishing the trade between Turkey and China. In Poland, there still is a strong preconception of the poor quality of Chinese products. Also, buying in bulk is often an obstacle for small businesses” comments[nbsp]Mateusz Gordon, e-commerce expert at Gemius.

Alibaba.com is more eagerly visited by men rather than women. Only in Ukraine the sexes perform equally in this respect. The Jack Ma’s e-commerce platform is popular among persons with higher education and internet audience between the ages 25 and 44.

“Alibaba is platform with a global reach, helping companies to trade more effectively. In terms of the total value of the commodity turnover, the Chinese platform performs better than eBay and Amazon combined. But one must bear in mind that the actual shopping is not done ON Alibaba, but THROUGH Alibaba, so the average profitability of the service itself is relatively low. The NYSE debut is indicative of the company’s determination to enter the North American and Western European markets,” Gordon sums up.

The data quoted originates from an international project (gemiusAudience) conducted by Gemius in more than 30 countries. It aims to research into the number and demographic profile of internet users and the manner in which they utilize the web. The study is performed according to Gemius proprietary hybrid methodology and in accordance with the ICC/ESOMAR international code of conduct.