NEWSWORTHY
China's Alibaba nets record $30 billion in Singles' Day sales extravaganza, but growth rate plunges
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. cashed a record 213.5 billion yuan ($30.7 billion) in sales Sunday during its 24-hour online retail frenzy Singles' Day, but the event's annual growth dropped to its slowest rate. Shoppers in China and across the world snapped up ...
Startup bets it can end Japan's love affair with cash payments
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash is still king. Now, as the country's biggest web companies race to capture the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a ...
Amazon and Alphabet growth engines sputter, while spending surges
The growth engines of Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc., the world's largest internet companies, sputtered last quarter, and after weeks of stock market jitters, investors were in no mood to give them a pass. Amazon, the biggest online retailer, on Thursday reported a second consecutive ...
WWF urges Yahoo Japan to restrict ivory trade on auction site
The Japanese arm of the World Wide Fund for Nature urged Yahoo Japan Corp. on Thursday to impose tighter restrictions on sales of ivory items on its auction site, saying it serves as a major platform for the ivory trade and encourages poaching. Among the ...
Alibaba founder Jack Ma to step down in 2019, pledges 'smooth transition'
Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma announced Monday he would step down as leader of the pioneering Chinese e-commerce giant one year from now, but insisted that a planned leadership transition would not break the company's stride. Ma will stay on as executive chairman until Sept. 10, ...
Shibuya109 eyes bigger reach through partnership with South Korea e-commerce site Cafe24
The operator of South Korea's cross-border, multilingual e-commerce platform Cafe24 and Tokyo's Shibuya109 shopping mall have joined forces to invigorate global clothing exports of the two countries' fashion brands. Cafe24 Corp. said it signed a memorandum of understanding in Seoul on Monday to partner with ...
SoftBank's Masayoshi Son in his own words — all 303,513 of them
Masayoshi Son has a lot going on these days. The SoftBank Group Corp. founder oversees the largest technology fund in history and is putting money into ride-hailing, e-commerce, digital payments, satellites, semiconductors, agriculture and cancer detection — just for starters. How to make sense of it ...
E-commerce giant Rakuten ties up with restaurant finder Gurunavi
E-commerce giant Rakuten Inc. says it has reached a capital alliance agreement with restaurant search business Gurunavi Inc. as it looks to strengthen its foothold in the growing online reservation market. Rakuten said Monday it will buy Gurunavi shares worth ¥4 billion currently held by ...
Zozotown, which swooped in as a little-known retail website and prodded once-reluctant Japanese consumers to shop online for clothes, is now facing stiff competition in the industry whose image it remade. Arriving on the scene in 2004, the site made a killing selling clothes from ...
Japan's Zozo expands made-to-order clothing service using measurement-taking bodysuit
By photographing themselves wearing the skintight polka-dot Zozosuit, users can upload their body measurements to ensure a perfect fit for the clothes they order.
Online shopping drives air freight profits higher despite protectionism fears
An explosion in e-commerce demand is buoying the air freight business, boosting profit at some major airlines despite global trade tensions and underscoring robust consumer confidence. Air freight demand is expected to rise 4 percent this year, the International Air Transport Association said at its ...
Bitcoin for otaku: Tokyo startup to launch cryptocurrency to serve communities
Cryptocurrencies may be making worldwide headlines as high volatility assets that have seen dazzling stretches of growth and stunning falls, but the CEO of Tokyo Otaku Mode Inc. believes they have a different kind of potential. Naomitsu Kodaka says cryptocurrencies can serve as cross-border digital ...
