Alibaba wants to groom 200,000 influencers in live-streaming e-commerce amid growing competition and weak economy
- Under the new programme, Taobao Live will direct up to 3 million platform visitors to select live streamers and institutions each month
- Alibaba and its competitors are fighting for a shrinking pool of consumer spending amid a sputtering Chinese economy
Alibaba Group Holding, the Hangzhou-based Chinese e-commerce giant, wants to cultivate 200,000 new influencers to boost its live-streaming business amid fierce industry competition and a cooling economy.
Taobao Live, the company’s live-streaming platform, announced the new plan on Thursday, adding that it would also support the development of 100,000 live-streaming accounts and 1,000 live-streaming studios that have an annual turnover exceeding 1 million yuan (US$143,000) in industrial hotspots across the country.
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The plan will kick off in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen, the port city of Quanzhou in Fujian province, as well as several manufacturing centres in the coastal province of Zhejiang, including Huzhou, Jiaxing and Shaoxing – all known for their textiles.
Under the new programme, Taobao Live will direct up to 3 million platform visitors to each select live streamers and institutions each month, with the overall traffic topping tens of billions of visitors, Alibaba said.
Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.
The company’s latest move followed a government crackdown on the live-streaming industry over tax and content issues, which has affected some of the most popular internet celebrities active on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms.