[Exclusive] Ali Establishes New Nest in Gangnam Parnas Tower... Accelerating Korean Market Push

Temporary Office Life Settlement... Summer Move-in
Large-scale Employee Recruitment Also Progressing in Tandem

Chinese e-commerce platform AliExpress is reportedly planning to relocate its Korean branch office to Parnas Tower in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Industry insiders analyze that AliExpress is gearing up to intensify its Korean market penetration by ending its temporary office arrangements.

According to related industry sources on the 1st, AliExpress will expand and move its office to Parnas Tower near Samseong Station as early as June. AliExpress will co-locate in the building with its parent company, Alibaba Group. AliExpress and Alibaba are expected to use two floors of Parnas Tower as office space, totaling 826.44㎡ (approximately 250 pyeong).

AliExpress and Alibaba plan to start interior construction on one of the two floors this month and gradually move in from June. The other floor is expected to begin interior work in July and move in around August. Until now, AliExpress and Alibaba have been using JustCo shared office in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, and State Tower Namsan in Hoehyeon-dong as temporary offices, respectively.

Along with the office relocation, AliExpress is also expanding its operations. Currently, about 10 employees work at AliExpress, but since last month, the company has started large-scale recruitment. The hiring process will continue until the 14th of next month, and the new employees are expected to start working at Parnas Tower. However, an AliExpress representative stated, "Everything is still undecided."

Industry experts view AliExpress's recent moves as stepping on the accelerator for Korean market penetration. Ali recently announced a large-scale investment plan for the domestic market, and AliExpress is expanding its operations in line with this. Previously, Alibaba, the parent company of AliExpress, submitted a Korean investment plan worth $1.1 billion (approximately 1.4822 trillion KRW) over three years to the government, including the establishment of logistics centers.

According to this plan, Ali intends to build a logistics center equivalent to 25 soccer fields in size within Korea by the end of this year. If Ali, which is encroaching on the Korean e-commerce market with an ultra-low price strategy, establishes a large-scale logistics center, it is expected to significantly shorten delivery times.

AliExpress entered the Korean market in 2018. Last year, it began full-scale platform marketing with popular actor Ma Dong-seok as its model. In October last year, it launched K-Venue, a Korean product specialty store, to attract Korean sellers and expanded its product categories to processed and fresh foods.

The number of users is also rapidly increasing. As of February, the monthly active users of the AliExpress app reached 8.18 million, a 130% increase compared to 3.55 million in the same period last year. In the ranking of comprehensive mall users, AliExpress surpassed 11st (7.36 million users) to rise to second place, forming a duopoly with Coupang (30.1 million users).