According to a report by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 1st (local time), Chinese rocket development startup Space Epoch said on its official WeChat (Chinese version of Kakao Talk) account that it will soon start a related experiment with Taobao, an online shopping mall in Alibaba. Alibaba also said, “A lot of great efforts seem like a joke at first,” and that it is preparing to deliver rockets using real rockets.
Space Epoch was founded in 2019 and has been mainly developing reusable rockets. At the center of Taobao’s grand plan to deliver one-hour worldwide is the reusable rocket “XZY-1.” The rocket, which sinks at sea, is known to have a 120㎥ loading space and can carry up to 10 tons of cargo. Space Epoch said, “If delivery is possible using rockets, it can transport large cargoes such as small and medium-sized packages, including passenger cars and small trucks. This will be a great and meaningful exploration in the long run, but it will not be easy to achieve the goal in a short period of time.”
Alibaba, China’s leading e-commerce company, is currently fiercely competing with other rapidly growing Chinese companies. Feeling the need to improve its logistics service, Alibaba launched a five-day delivery service last year. It expanded its service area to the U.S. last month after Germany, France, and Portugal.
Earlier, SpaceX, a space company led by Elon Musk, also announced plans for rocket transportation. In June 2021, Musk announced that he would build Daymos, a maritime aerospace, and use it as a base for rocket transport. Musk argues that using rockets and sea airports can shorten the travel time between New York and Beijing, which takes about 14 hours by plane, to less than 30 minutes. The plan was halted at the proposal stage, and some speculated that the project seemed to have virtually ended. However, most experts say that Musk’s plans to use sea airports and rockets, and Alibaba’s “one-hour delivery around the world” plan will bring about drastic changes in e-commerce delivery. In particular, if Alibaba in China, which has enormous financial power, realizes “real rocket delivery,” it is expected that Chinese e-commerce companies, which are increasing their market share around the world, will have a stronger position. In fact, as of January, as many as 7 out of the top 10 e-commerce companies worldwide with monthly users included Chinese companies or their capital. These companies are also rapidly eroding the Korean market. Last month, the number of monthly active users of the AliExpress app rose to second place, beating 11th Street with 8.18 million, and Temu also jumped to fourth place, surpassing G Market with 5.81 million.
SOPHIA KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
