HONG KONG (AP) 鈥 China's Alibaba Group says its CEO Eddie Wu will head its core e-commerce business, as the company seeks to drive growth and fend off fast-growing online shopping rivals like Pinduoduo.
Wu is replacing Trudy Dai, a longtime Alibaba executive who was one of the founding employees of the company.
Alibaba鈥檚 chairman Joe Tsai said in an internal letter dated Wednesday that Dai will help set up an asset management company aimed at improving returns on capital and 鈥渆nhance shareholder value.鈥
The reshuffle came after PDD Holdings Inc., which operates online shopping platform Pinduoduo and U.S.-focused e-commerce site Temu, surpassed Alibaba in market value in the past month.
As of Tuesday, PDD鈥檚 market capitalization of its U.S.-listed stock was $199.41 billion. Alibaba鈥檚 was $191.75 billion.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma earlier this month praised PDD for having managed to grow bigger than his Hangzhou-based company, which had for years been China鈥檚 biggest e-commerce player.
Alibaba needs a 鈥渂rand-new strategy鈥 and a change in the firm鈥檚 organizational principles and systems to a 鈥渂rand new environment,鈥 Tsai said in his letter.
Alibaba鈥檚 Hong Kong-listed stock rose 3.5% in trading Wednesday following the announcement.
The company restructured its businesses in March, splitting them into six units that would eventually raise their own capital and go public. Its cloud unit had been expected to be among the first to hold an initial public offering, but Alibaba later scrapped plans to spin-off the business, citing uncertainties over U.S. export curbs on advanced chips used for artificial intelligence.
