Alibaba in Mexico: Adapting the digital villages model to Latin America

Abstract

Based on experiences in China where rural development has reputedly been accelerated through use of its e-commerce platforms to create Taobao Villages, Chinese digital conglomerate Alibaba has sought to export its vision of “inclusive globalisation” to other economies in the Global South. Its initiatives intended to reduce inequality by specifically supporting small enterprises. Some research has already charted its multi-dimensional Electronic World Trade Platform approach. However, its more narrowly-focused Digital Villages approach, currently being implemented in Latin America, has still not been analyzed. Drawing on data from interviews and documentary sources, this article analyses the activities of Atomic88, an Alibaba subsidiary in Mexico, which (initially) focused on digitally-enabled development of small enterprise. It finds that Alibaba’s nascent position in an e-commerce market dominated by US and Latin American platforms led it to follow a quite different path from the Chinese Taobao Village Model. It sought out the action areas – training and consultancy – that would not directly compete with incumbents, and worked as an indirect facilitator of local actors, rather than directly intervening. While short-term inequality-reduction impact of Alibaba’s approach could be called into question, what it has done is build relationships with key digital economy stakeholders in Mexico. These show signs of providing valuable stepping stones toward a larger and more direct presence of Alibaba in the Mexican market.

Keywords:

• Alibaba
• digital villages
• inclusive globalization
• Mexico
• Taobao Villages

Acknowledgements

This research was developed as part of the project, “China’s Digital Expansion in the Global South”, funded by the Faculty of Humanities, University of Manchester, UK. Richard Heeks and Chris Foster of the Centre for Digital Development, University of Manchester, were the facilitating editors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Notes

1 Inclusive globalisation has at times been more broadly associated with the entirety of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Liu, Dunford, and Gao 2018; Weidong 2017).