Alibaba Group appoints Yu Yongfu as president of Alimama

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced today it has appointed Yu Yongfu as president of the Company’s online marketing unit, Alimama, to spearhead the business into new areas of growth.

Yu joined Alibaba Group last June to lead the Company’s mobile business unit consisting of Autonavi and UCWeb. Prior to joining Alibaba Group, Yu was chief executive of China’s largest mobile browser company, UCWeb. UCWeb was acquired by Alibaba Group in June 2014. Yu will begin his new position today and will report to Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group’s chief operating officer.

“As China’s e-commerce industry rapidly develops, Alimama has thrived and become an integral part of Alibaba Group’s ecosystem. This new mobile Internet era will usher in more opportunities for Alimama and Yongfu’s deep experience in both mobile sector and digital media area will help further Alimama’s growth," said Daniel Zhang.

Yu’s appointment highlights the strategic importance of online marketing and mobile Internet initiatives within Alibaba’s ecosystem. With Yu overseeing the mobile Internet business and Alimama, the Company will be able to consolidate resources and increase synergies across those units. Alimama is Alibaba Group's online marketing technology platform that offers sellers on Alibaba Group’s marketplaces online marketing services for both personal computers and mobile devices.

"Mobile Internet and big data are two trends that are shaping online marketing and advertising and Alimama is well poised to benefit from new opportunities on these fronts. Alimama’s goal is to expand its focus from e-commerce online marketing to become a leading media platform that efficiently matches advertisers and their target audience,” said Yu Yongfu, president of Alimama.

Alimama’s major initiatives for the year include integrating data and technology products and services to better serve clients and partners, building a country-wide and industry-wide platform for data to increase clients’ data utilization and to support over 100,000 media partners.