Tmall Genie Upgraded to an Independent Unit of Alibaba

On January 1st, according to Sina Technology, Alibaba announced a strategic reorganization of its IoT business, upgrading Tmall Genie to an independent business unit. Tmall Genie will be under the leadership of Ku Wei, leader of Alibaba Cloud IoT Strategy.

In addition, Chen Lijuan, the former head of Tmall Genie business, will lead the rest of the AI Lab business, joining Cloud Intelligence, and will be responsible for product solutions and website divisions to promote and establish an intelligent cloud-powered product system.

Back in December 2018, Alibaba proceeded with a round of restructuring, after Daniel Zhang succeeded Jack Ma’s position as Alibaba‘s chairman. Incubated by Alibaba Cloud in 2016, the AI Lab of “Tmall Genie” was officially launched in July 2017. It was no longer affiliated with Alibaba Cloud, but was included in the innovation business group of Alibaba Group. Chen Lijuan, who is in charge of the AI lab, reported directly to CEO Daniel Zhang.

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According to sales data from the 2019 IDC China smart speaker market report, from January to November 2019, Tmall Genie ranked first among China’s smart speakers in terms of market share, with 12.58 million units sold. The report shows that Tmall Genie has ranked first in sales for three consecutive quarters.

Alibaba also said that it will further increase its investment to allow Tmall Genie and Alibaba Cloud IoT to jointly explore innovations in the within China’s IoT sector.