Russian e-commerce player, Mail.ru Group, has announced it will invest an additional $60.3 million in the AliExpress Russia joint venture in the fourth quarter of this year. The money will be used to actively develop logistics, expand categories, as well as improve service levels and customer experience.
Mail.ru Group already owns 15 percent of the joint venture’s shares, and controls 17.6 percent of the voting shares in AliExpress Russia. Following the new round of investment, significant changes in the company’s shareholding are not expected.
AliExpress Russia was created as a joint venture between Alibaba Group, Mail.ru Group, telecom player MegaFon and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) in 2019.
In April, financial disclosures from AliExpress Russia showed total gross merchandise volume (GMV) of 229 billion roubles ($3.1 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 31, versus 210 billion roubles ($2.85 billion) for the previous year. The total number of unique buyers on the platform for the financial year exceeded 26 million.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Technology Express staff and is published from a syndicated fee)
