For the first time in Russia: the founder of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma gave an interview to the Russian edition

Founder of Alibaba Group Jack Ma on June 19 delivered a report on the future of e-commerce at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum and talked to RBC correspondents.

"Megamind" leads the most interesting quotes from the interview.

On the timeliness of entering the Russian market

When others think that everything is going well, I always say: you need to wait a bit. And when everyone panics, I think: we need to move forward. Every economy has ups and downs. When the market falls, this is the best time to get ready. It does not matter what problems we will face in the current economic situation, in the future everything will turn out well. I never make a plan for the year ahead - I think about the next 5-10 years.

About the reasons for success in Russia

Infrastructure for trade and the financial system were not in the best condition, and with the advent of the Internet, they are more and more improved. Two to three years ago, logistics was so bad that if a girl from Russia ordered an online item from China on AliExpress, she was delivered in 60-70 days. Now delivery takes 20-25 days. And what if we improve the logistics? In this we see an opportunity for our business in Russia.
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I think that people buy on AliExpress , despite the long delivery time, because of the good service and product quality. Now we need to improve payment and delivery, and things will go even better.

On the needs of China in Russian goods

I dream of a service through which small business from Russia will sell to the whole world. In the Russian economy, everything is bad, so why not sell to China? We have 2.5 million middle class people. I think that in 15 years there will be 500 million of them. And they have a request for good products.

First, Chinese consumers may be interested in food from Russia. Secondly, clothing may be in demand. They say to me: clothes in China are better and cheaper. Ok, but what about winter clothes? We need winter hats that you can do perfectly.

On cooperation with the Post of Russia

I met with the general director of the Post of Russia. I really appreciate the work they have done in recent years - reducing the delivery time from China from 60 to 20 days. I think in the next few months we will be able to advance to the seven-day period and significantly improve the existing service and infrastructure.
We have AliPay - maybe in the future Russia Pay will appear. If we start investing - working with Russian Post and financial organizations - in 10 years Russia will have very advanced online trading and infrastructure for it.

About competition with Chinese JD.com

Megamind wrote that Chinese online retailer JD.com announced it would enter the Russian market. The retailer plans to occupy 20% of the e-commerce market in Russia in the next five years.

We differ in business model: Alibaba is not engaged in pure e-commerce. We help others buy and serve. Our goal is for every company to work like JD.com, that is, to sell things online. In addition, the Russian market needs more participants, because the potential of online commerce in Russia is huge. Finally, you need to be a financially sustainable company in order to successfully develop in new markets and invest in their development.

About plans for the near future

In the next five years, we will be the first company in the world, whose total sales at sites will reach $ 1 trillion. And at least 20% of this amount will not come from China.

Look, we now have about 800 million users in China, sales are $ 0.5 trillion, the potential is $ 2 trillion, and without taking into account the global market. But the demand in developing countries and in the world as a whole is huge. The US population is more than 300 million people, and if we attract 100 million customers there, it will be good.

So with the current growth rate (Alibaba's revenue in the last quarter of 2014 increased by 40% compared to the same period in 2013, RBC note ), we need even less than five years to reach $ 1 trillion in the world. But since we still have a lot to do, we have set such a bar.

On the direction of the company and the two "H"

People do not understand where we are going because they consider us a company. We consider ourselves not to be a company, but an organization that will change world trade in the future. Our first priority is to simplify the work of small companies. We are building a platform that will give them what we expect them to do: financial instruments, logistics services, data collection, and cross-border trade opportunities. So we see ourselves in the next 10 years.

And in the next 10 years, for which we must prepare now, we will focus on two H: health (“health”) and happiness (“happiness”). In the first case, it is assumed that we will invest in health care. And in the case of happiness, we are talking about cinema, theaters and other entertainment and communication tools for young people. People get lost, they say Alibaba is everywhere, but we have a focus on small business and two H.