Alibaba's new CEO plans to overtake Walmart

Daniel Zhang Yong, CEO of Alibaba Group, speaks after the November 11 Singles' Day shopping spree at the headquarters of Alibaba in Hangzhou city, East China's Zhejiang province, Nov 12, 2014. [Photo/IC]

Alibaba Group Holding is poised to overtake Walmart later this year as the world's biggest retail platform, said Daniel Zhang Yong, chief executive officer of the e-commerce behemoth, reported TMTPost.

The goal includes achieving more than $1 trillion gross merchandise value (GMV) in five years, while developing more infrastructural platforms to empower businesses in the future, said the new CEO in an internal meeting on Wednesday, three days after he replaced Jonathan Lu.

The change of leadership was announced earlier this month as Alibaba released its better-than-expected first-quarter results. Revenue of the Internet giant surged 45 percent in the three months through March.

It's critical to achieve the sales target while retaining a thriving ecosystem, said Zhang, adding that mechanism should be improved to tackle issues such as counterfeits and bogus transactions among Taobao vendors who wished to boast sales volume to gain prominence.

"Behind the $1 trillion target, the other is our new businesses apart from ecommerce, where we need more resource allocation, focus and new breakthroughs," said the 43-year-old CEO, according to the news.

Cloud computing is a first, said Zhang, adding that cloud computing will serve as the engine in the new economic era, empowering all businesses to better serve consumers and improve productivity.

Zhang joined Alibaba as chief financial officer of Taobao Marketplace in 2007 and acted as COO since 2013.