Alibaba chief Eddie Wu has strengthened his grip on the sprawling tech conglomerate, reshuffling management once again to take direct charge of its core ecommerce business as it loses market share to rivals PDD Holdings and ByteDance, reports the Financial Times. At the end of a year of restructuring, executive changes and strategy reversals at the Chinese company, Wu is now chief executive of Alibaba’s ecommerce unit, as well as chief of its cloud division and group CEO, roles he only assumed in September.
Wu had unexpectedly taken leadership of the cloud business, overturning a succession plan through which departing group chief executive Daniel Zhang was to head up the unit. The Financial Times reported in November that Wu had pushed him out.
“It is clear there has been a lot of tension internally between the contending factions. This move should unify things,” said Duncan Clark, founder of the Beijing-based BDA China consultancy and author of Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built.