Pos Malaysia eyes Alibaba Group partnership

Malaysian postal company Pos Malaysia has plans to expand its role in providing logistic services to e-commerce giant Alibaba Group amid the rise of online retail.According to a Bloomberg report, talks are scheduled to be held this month between the two parties in a bid to bypass the middlemen when shipping goods are sold on Alibaba’s platforms.  This was said by Pos Malaysia CEO Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh in an interview with the news publication.He added that Pos Malaysia recently saw a 40% jump in profit in the fiscal first quarter due to rapidly rising parcel deliveries for online shopping. This led to higher full-year earnings than the year before. The focus will still be on e-commerce which will drive the logistics business.“When e-commerce is booming, somebody needs to deliver these items,” Mohd Shukrie said to Bloomberg. When reached out to by A+M, Pos Malaysia declined to provide further details on the matter.In June, Pos Malaysia collaborated with Shopee, a mobile-first, consumer-to-consumer social marketplace. The collaboration gave all sellers on the platform the ability to ship their sold items for free.The beta version of the free shipping program was launched in May to select sellers via several batches to monitor its growth and engagement. It grants sellers a capped subsidy for deliveries of items to West Malaysia and East Malaysia respectively.