After doubts about Alibaba’s future, co-founder Joe Tsai says: ‘We’re back’

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is back on track to be a top market player after a period of pressure, co-founder Joe Tsai told CNBC’s Emily Tan in an exclusive interview Friday.

Questions about Alibaba’s future have mounted after a series of internal changes, a scrapped cloud computing IPO and competition for its core e-commerce business.

The long-time behemoth in China’s online shopping world has in recent years faced greater competition as cost-conscious consumers turn to lower-priced goods from PDD Holdings, and amid the rise of livestreaming sales on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok that’s owned by ByteDance.

“Now with the restructuring and with the new management in place, we feel a lot more confident in placing as one of the top e-commerce players in China,” Tsai said. “Where we didn’t feel as confident as before, we felt the competitive pressure, but now we’re back.”

He also expects the penetration of e-commerce in China to exceed 40% in the next five years, up significantly from the current 30% level.

Tsai has been part of Alibaba since its founding in 1999. He became chairman of Alibaba in September as part of a leadership reshuffle.

Eddie Wu became CEO of the company at the same time, replacing Daniel Zhang, who had also held the chairman role. In December, Wu took over as head of the Taobao and Tmall e-commerce business from Trudy Dai.

The management shakeup followed an overhaul of Alibaba’s business last year that split the company into six business groups, with an eye to list them publicly starting with the cloud unit.

However, Alibaba in November pulled plans for a cloud IPO, citing U.S. chip export curbs. Zhang was originally supposed to stay on as head of the cloud business but abruptly quit the company in September.

Tsai said a cloud IPO would have made more sense…