Alibaba announces management restructuring

Alibaba, China's biggest e-commerce firm, announced a management restructuring on Tuesday, with a strong focus on the mobile Internet business.

Jonathan Lu, the new chief executive of the e-commerce giant, will lead the company's mobile Internet business, said the company, which celebrated its 14th anniversary on Tuesday.

Zhang Yong, the former head of Alibaba's business-to-customer section, steps up becoming the company's chief operations officer.

In an email released on Tuesday, Lu announced the restructuring of the company's business units, which includes the formation of a mobile communication unit. The unit is made up of Alibaba's Wangxin, a communication tool between online buyers and sellers, and Laiwang, a mobile chatting app.

A new business unit, Taotao Diandian, covering Alibaba's online-to-offline business, was also established. The department will report directly to Lu, Alibaba's chief executive officer.

Lu also announced plans to upgrade the company OS business department into an OS business unit, which is in charge of Alibaba's OS mobile phone business department and OS smart entertainment department.

A digital entertainment business unit was also announced. The unit will supervise the company's music, video, books and other entertainment business.

In the meantime, Jack Ma, Alibaba's executive chairman, released the company's partnership system for the first time in an email he sent to all of the company's employees on Tuesday.

"A partner-led management system is the best solution to guarantee Alibaba making constant progress in innovation and management," Ma said, adding the company has added 28 partners over the past three years.