Alibaba merges delivery platform Ele.me and travel agency Fliggy into e-commerce group

CEO Eddie Wu said the restructuring ‘marks a strategic upgrade from an e-commerce platform to a comprehensive consumer platform’

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Alibaba’s food delivery service Ele.me previously operated under the company’s Local Services Group. Photo: Simon Song

Published: 11:51am, 23 Jun 2025Updated: 5:56pm, 23 Jun 2025

Alibaba Group Holding is merging its food delivery platform Ele.me and online travel agency Fliggy into its core e-commerce business, as the Chinese tech giant seeks to streamline operations and sharpen its focus on artificial intelligence (AI).

The restructuring “marks a strategic upgrade from an e-commerce platform to a comprehensive consumer platform”, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming wrote in a letter to employees on Monday. “Moving forward, we will increasingly optimise our business models and organisational structures from the user’s perspective to create richer, higher-quality consumer experiences.”

Alibaba, the business conglomerate founded by billionaire Jack Ma, owns the South China Morning Post.

Following the changes, Ele.me CEO Fan Yu and Fliggy CEO Zhuang Zhuoran will report directly to Jiang Fan, who leads Alibaba’s E-commerce Business Group. That division oversees domestic platforms Tmall and Taobao, as well as the company’s international e-commerce operations.

The move was designed to drive synergies across Alibaba’s consumer-facing businesses – “sharing unified objectives and fighting as one”, Wu said – reinforcing the e-commerce group’s role as the company’s main profit engine.

Ele.me was previously grouped with Alibaba’s mapping service Amap under the Local Services Group, while Fliggy had operated independently.

“Ele.me’s merger clearly aims to bridge the gap between instant delivery services for retail goods and food, integrating resources to better compete in the broader instant retail market,” said Hu Yugui, an analyst at Dolphin Research, a secondary market research brand under Longbridge. He added that the synergies from Fliggy’s merger are less clear, requiring a “wait-and-see” approach.