Has Alibaba Lost Its Appetite for an Ele.me Sale?

As it revamps its strategy, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is scaling back its longstanding push into offline businesses, raising questions about the future role of its local services and food delivery platform, Ele.me.

Since early 2024, rumors have circulated that Ele.me might be put up for sale, along with Alibaba’s other offline assets deemed non-core in the company’s latest business revamp. These include the grocery business Freshippo and supermarket chain RT-Mart. Rising rival ByteDance, the owner of short video sensation TikTok and its Chinese sibling Douyin, is reportedly a potential buyer of Ele.me.