He also wants to bring Alipay in the Philippines
Alibaba’s CEO, founder Jack Ma visited the Philippines yesterday. Aside from delivering an insightful talk, he noticed that the Philippines’ internet speeds are “no good”, which doesn’t really bode well for either of the the two telcos. Thankfully Jack Ma isn’t one to just complain – he’s expressed interest to help boost internet services for the Philippines.
This comes after Ma met with President Duterte yesterday, along with Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, Sen. Richard Gordon and other government officials.
Ma expressed his intent to invest in the Philippines by tapping the youth using internet and mobile service as a platform for free trade. He also discussed his firm’s online payment platform, Alipay and how it could be used in the Philippines, along with expansion of e-commerce in the country through Alibaba.com, who currently has majority stake in Lazada.
Ma’s interest in helping out the Government to boost PH internet can come in many forms, but the biggest help would be if he bankrolls a third player in the telco space. San Miguel Corp had problems with finding a foreign partner in setting up their own telco, as Australian firm Telstra backed out of the deal. While San Miguel promised to trudge on by itself, it ultimately gave up on its telco ambitions, selling off its extremely valuable 700MHz spectrum and other assets to both Globe and PLDT.
