(Yicai Global) May 21 -- Major Chinese household appliance maker Hisense Group yesterday signed a cooperation agreement with AliExpress, an overseas e-commerce platform under Alibaba Group Holding, to jointly develop overseas online retail markets.

This is Hisense’s first partnership with an overseas e-commerce platform, the company announced today on its official account on Tencent Holding’s popular WeChat messaging app.

The pair has thus far cooperated in Russia, France and Spain.

Hisense’s sales of 50-inch and above TVs surged over 11-fold as of March 28 over February during the sales promotion for AliExpress’ 10th anniversary, per the announcement.

Out of Outlets

“Hisense and other household appliance firms were selling their products overseas mainly in their brick-and-mortar outlets before the Covid-19 broke out,” said Liu Xin, vice chairman of Hisense International Marketing, adding, “Many outlets have closed amid the virus, but consumer demand is still there, which creates an opportunity for us to develop overseas e-commerce channels and better our online business operating capability.”

Qingdao, Shandong province-based Hisense does business in over 160 countries. It reported CNY46.1 billion (USD6.5 billion) in overseas revenue last year, up 21.1 percent on the year.

The company was the subject of heated discussion about layoffs last month. The firm denied a rumor it was to cut 10,000 employees, saying the he number of layoffs was untrue.

The global Covid-19 outbreak sent household appliance markets both at home and abroad into a nosedive. Hisense’s overseas business makes up over 40 percent of its total revenue and it is thus facing a grim situation.

Hisense cut executive salaries and axed underperforming employees to hike efficiency and stabilize its business.

Editor: Ben Armour