Proactive Investors - Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) chief executive Eddie Wu will head up the company’s floundering e-commerce business as it faces heated competition.
Wu’s appointment, which will see him take the spot of founding partner Trudy Dai, comes after rival PDD Holdings Inc has surpassed Alibaba’s market cap in the past month.
Chairman Joe Tsai revealed the news in an internal letter on Wednesday, in which he said Abilbaba needed a “brand-new strategy”.
A “brand-new environment” was needed for Alibaba’s organisation and systems, Tsai added.
Alibaba had restructured in March, splitting its businesses into six entities with the view of taking each public.
Scrapped plans to spin-off its cloud business over US exports restrictions had contributed to share price losses for Alibaba last month, with the stock having fallen 14% over the year.
PPD Holdings, which operates Pinduoduo and Temu - rivals to Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall e-commerce business - has climbed almost 78% over the year, meanwhile.
“Eddie’s leadership of both Alibaba Cloud and [Taobao and Tmall] will ensure total focus on, and significant and sustained investment in, our two core businesses of cloud computing and e-commerce,” Tsai added.