Forbes Features Alibaba.com as Cover Story, "Best of the Web: B2B"

Business Wire, July 10, 2000

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--JULY 11, 2000

Alibaba.com, business-to-business marketplace for global trade, announced today that US business magazine Forbes has featured the company as its cover story for Forbes Global and selected the company as one of the Forbes.com "Best of the Web: B2B" companies.

Alibaba.com is the only company on the Forbes "Best of the Web: B2B" list which was founded in China. The winners for the honor were selected by a team of Forbes editors and industry analysts, based on the company's "strategy, it's execution, its financial staying power, and its website," according to the magazine. Forbes selected 200 companies for the Best of the Web honor, from an original list of over 1,000 companies.

Discussing Alibaba.com's award in an interview on CNN, Forbes editor Matthew Shifrin said, "We think that that company has a lot of potential. It`s a Hong Kong-based company that`s a neutral trading exchange where hundreds of thousands of small businesses from around the world, 194 different countries, come and meet and you can buy things like piston rings from India, pork loins from Denmark...It`s just a great meeting place and we think it has a lot of potential."

Alibaba.com founder and CEO Jack Ma, who appears as the cover story of the July 24 edition of Forbes Global in the magazine's Asian distribution, said, "From the first day we started Alibaba.com our goal has been to become one of the top websites in the world, not just one of the top websites in China. This honor by Forbes, one of the world's most respected publications, recognizes that Alibaba.com has emerged as a truly global Internet leader."

Alibaba.com and Jack Ma are featured in both the US and global versions of Forbes publications this month, reaching over one million of the world's business leaders. Forbes is the oldest business magazine in America, founded in 1917.

About Alibaba.com

Alibaba.com is the world's leading online business-to-business marketplace and community for global trade. The company is focused on facilitating trade among small and medium sized enterprises through its web-based information and e-commerce platform. Alibaba.com's web properties have a combined membership of over 250,000 members.

Alibaba.com is headquartered in Hong Kong with operations in Mainland China and branch offices in Seoul, Silicon Valley and London.

Alibaba.com's institutional investors include SOFTBANK, Goldman Sachs, Transpac Capital, Fidelity Capital, Venture TDF Pte Ltd of Singapore and Investor AB of Sweden.

Alibaba.com's Board of Advisors includes Peter Sutherland, founding Director-General of the World Trade Organization and Masayoshi Son, President and CEO of SOFTBANK Corp.