Alibaba is spending more than 3 billion to dominate grocery grocery in China

Alibaba (Baba) Is in a fierce battle with rivals JD.com (J.D.) For China’s online food market. During the annual sales blizzard in June, the JD said grocery grocery sales doubled compared to the same period last year.

E-commerce giants are winning over shoppers using a combination of both physical supermarket and shop online platforms. With tie-ups Wal-Mart (WMT) In Yonggui, a chain of Chinese and local groceries, JD has a nationwide network of brick-and-mortar stores that double the number of warehouses and fulfillment centers. Gro has a similar operation in Alibaba, using its Freshipo grocery store chain and Sun Art Shops to store and deliver online groceries.

Increasing its stake in Sun Art signals that Alibaba is pushing Chinese consumers toward post-epidemic “accelerated digitization,” said Jefferies analyst Thomas Chong. Sun Art operates about 500 hypermarkets and supermarkets in China.

“Alibaba highlights digitization as the best opportunity to change how people live and work, and seeks out” opportunities in traditional retail “by solving problems such as scalability and sustainability,” Choling said in a note on Monday. Wrote in a note.

According to analytics firm GlobalData, China’s grocery grocery sector is “determined for explosive growth.”

China emerged from lockdown restrictions earlier this year, with 56% of shoppers buying food and groceries more frequently than ever before, the company said in a report in June. In the United States, GlobalData found that about 30% of shoppers were more likely to buy food and groceries online than ever before.