Cainiao, a logistics service operated by Alibaba is opening two automated distribution centers in Karachi and Lahore as its first entry into Pakistan.
Alibaba’s overseas growth strategy has evolved into a mix of investment and integration, as it continues to expand across markets in Africa, Europe and the
Ecommerce giant Alibaba just acquired Pakistan’s eCommerce platform for an undisclosed amount.
It’s part of the Alibaba Marketplace Group, and it controls Lazada, which is neck to neck with Shopee in Southeast Asia.
Daraz is the latest spin-off from Rocket Internet which started in 2012. Founded in Malaysia, Daraz now operates in 15 countries and is the largest eCommerce destination for Fashion and Apparel in Asia. It also sells toys, books, and other retail products as well as offers a marketplace for freelance services.
Cainiao is introducing a smart distribution center with a suite of in-house tech, like electric control units, software-based programmable logic controllers (PLC is critical for warehouse automation but traditionally is hardware-powered, Caniao told TechCrunch), and a computing solution that promises to combine the capabilities of cloud and the speedy runtime on the edge.
A suite of warehousing solutions, said Cainiao, can reduce manual labor by half and increase human productivity by 100%.
There is no doubt that given Alibaba’s far-reaching footprint across the globe, it won’t be surprising to see Cainiao follow its parent into more countries.
Cainiao already operates nine large overseas distribution centers across Europe, Asia and the Americas and has plans to ramp up operations in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Europe.
You may not know it, but Alibaba owns Cainiao. The company is one of Alibaba’s largest logistics operations, and it’s one of the biggest e-commerce sites in China. In fact, Alibaba acquired Cainiao for about $2 billion in 2014 and is planning to integrate the two companies to make a broader logistics network in China.
“Cainiao has been developing logistics network in Southeast Asia and Europe, leveraging the commerce use cases presented by Lazada, AliExpress, and the Trendyol.” AliExpress is Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce platform that mostly connects Chinese sellers to global consumers.
