马云着眼世界 阿里巴巴为何大举收购

The groups Alibaba is defending itself against include, most notably, Tencent and Baidu.
阿里巴巴集团正在打一场防御战，它最明显的对手就包括腾讯和百度。

Tencent developed the hugely popular chat app WeChat, which is evolving into a “one-stop online lifestyle service platform”, says Cynthia Meng at Jefferies. The app already offers ecommerce and investment services, and could soon be planning to push into mobile banking, she adds.
腾讯开发了极为流行的聊天应用微信(WeChat)。杰富瑞证券公司(Jefferies)的Cynthia Meng表示，该应用正演化成一种“一站式在线生活方式服务平台”。她补充说，该应用已经在提供电商和投资服务，并可能很快规划进军手机银行业务。

A Chinese new year promotion encouraged millions to link their bank account to WeChat as a way of sending traditional holiday presents of money – or “red packets” – to friends.
在农历新年的一次推广活动中，该应用鼓励数以百万计的人将银行账号与微信相连，以便向朋友发送传统节日礼物“红包”。

Baidu, the search and media group, has also been active in mobile-focused acquisitions, and has spent as much as, if not more than, Alibaba on dealmaking in the past year, including $1.9bn on a popular Chinese app store.
过去一年里，搜索和媒体集团百度在移动领域的收购也十分活跃，其在并购交易上动用的资金不在阿里巴巴之下，包括斥资19亿美元收购中国一家流行的应用商店。

Among Alibaba’s defensive plays, Mr Clendenin says, was its purchase last April of 18 per cent in Nasdaq-listed Sina Weibo. The Twitter-like microblogging site lets Alibaba mix more social media with its ecommerce, moving into the same area as WeChat. “They had a blind spot and they were getting their butt kicked by Weixin [WeChat],” he says. “Weibo was a blocking manoeuvre.”
克伦德宁表示，阿里巴巴的防御性举措之一是去年4月购得在纳斯达克(Nasdaq)上市的新浪微博(Weibo) 18%股权。新浪微博是一个类似推特(Twitter)的微博网站，让阿里巴巴能在其电子商务业务中加入更多社交网络元素，从而进入微信所在的领域。他表示：“过去，他们的业务存在盲区，这让他们被微信打得无法还手。入股新浪微博是一个招架动作。”

Part of the challenge for Alibaba, analysts say, is that the large scale of its core ecommerce business means accelerating growth relative to the market will take substantial new business. Despite such worries, Alibaba’s revenues last quarter increased by more than half over a year ago.
分析人士表示，阿里巴巴面临的部分挑战在于，该公司核心的电子商务业务规模太大，这意味着该公司必须开拓大量新业务才能实现相对于市场的加速增长。不过，尽管存在这种担忧，阿里巴巴上季度的营收增幅同比还是超过了一半。

The Russian frontier
俄罗斯市场的前线

While there are still vast opportunities offered by the Chinese market, Alibaba will at some point have to look further afield to continue its growth. But instead of a showdown with Amazon in Europe and the US, the most likely arena for its next expansion may be Russia, where Alibaba will clash with market leader Ozon and eBay, which is also making a push into the market.
尽管中国市场仍存在巨大商机，但阿里巴巴为保持增长势头，总有一天将不得不把目光投向更遥远的地方。不过，该公司不太可能在欧美与亚马逊(Amazon)展开对决。相反，它最有可能的下一个扩张目标是俄罗斯。在那里，它将与占市场领导地位的Ozon以及同样在挤入这一市场的eBay展开竞争。

Alibaba last year launched a Russian site for its AliExpress business. AliExpress is a unit that typically sells to wholesale buyers outside China, but it also lets shoppers buy in smaller quantities.
去年，阿里巴巴为其全球速卖通(AliExpress)业务推出一个俄语网站。全球速卖通销售的目标通常是国外批发商，但也会让购物者购买少量商品。

The AliExpress site is far less slick than most ecommerce sites in the US and Europe, and it uses machine translation for some text, as few of the retailers listing goods on the site speak Russian. Sellers with names such as ABC Co from Guangdong province sell $18 dashboard cameras for cars, a popular item in Russia. Others offer dresses for under $10, or fur-lined men’s shoes for $25.
全球速卖通网站的运转远不如欧美多数电子商务网站流畅。由于在该网站上列出商品的零售商几乎没人懂俄语，网页上部分文字还是用机器翻译而成的。在该网站上，类似广东省ABC Co等名称的卖家以18美元出售车用仪表盘摄像头，一种在俄罗斯很受欢迎的商品。此外还有卖家以不到10美元的价格出售衣服，或以25美元的价格出售带毛皮衬里的男鞋。

Alibaba has been working on getting into the market for a few years. In 2012 it struck a deal with Qiwi, the leading online payment provider, to help Russians buy AliExpress goods.
几年来，阿里巴巴一直在致力于进入俄罗斯市场。2012年，该公司与俄罗斯最大的在线支付提供商Qiwi达成一个协议，以帮助俄罗斯人购买全球速卖通上提供的商品。