Benzinga | Sep 17, 2021 08:29AM EDT

Alibaba's Reshuffles Lazada's Leadership For Growth: Bloomberg

* Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's (NYSE: BABA) Lazada Group created a new role to lead payments in Southeast Asia, Bloomberg reports.

* Dayong Zhang, former Southeast Asia GM for Ant Group Co's Alipay, will lead Lazada's payments business.

* Lazada's Singapore CEO James Chang will become the group's Chief Business Officer. Lazada Group CEO's office head Wee Lee Loh will replace Chang as the Singapore chief.

* Lazada aims to compete with aggressive payment products positioning by Southeast Asian internet rivals like Grab Holdings Inc and Sea Ltd.

* Lazada has been investing in technology and focusing on localization to cater to different consumer tastes across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

* Lazada recorded more than 90% order growth during the June quarter and has about 150 million monthly average users.

* Related Content: Chinese Stocks Gain Steam As Tencent's WeChat Agrees To Allow External Links

* Price Action: BABA shares traded higher by 1.39% at $158.43 in the premarket session on the last check Friday.