Online Payment Achieves Critical Mass in China as Alipay's Daily Transaction Volumes Reach US$12.8 million

Hangzhou, China, 31 January 2007 - Alipay, China's leading online payment service and a division of the Alibaba Group, today announced its key metrics for 2006, capping a year in which online payment reached a critical mass in China.

Alipay announced that by 31 December 2006:

• The number of registered Alipay users surpassed 33 million
• Alipay's daily transaction volume reached US$12.8 million
  (RMB100 million)
• The number of daily transactions using Alipay reached 460,000

In 2006, Alipay further extended its leadership in online payments to merchants outside of the Alibaba and Taobao marketplaces, with more than 300,000 external merchants using Alipay as their preferred online payment platform, including leading local brands Lenovo, CCTV, Aigo, and New Oriental.

Jonathan Lu, President of Alipay, said, "Alibaba's e-commerce community is built on trust and it is also an essential part of our online payment platform. Alipay's escrow based system has solved the problem of trust for Chinese e-commerce users and is the safest way to trade online in China."