(Bloomberg) -- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Lazada Group is preparing to make its maiden foray into Europe, building on its success in Southeast Asia to take on rivals such as Amazon.com Inc. and Zalando SE in one of the biggest online shopping markets.

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Its specific plans will depend on macroeconomic and market conditions, Lazada Group Chief Executive Officer James Dong, 43, told Bloomberg News. But it’s clear Alibaba is intensifying its global ambitions, in part because of rocky economic conditions back home.

Dong, one-time business assistant to Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang, took the reins of Alibaba’s most important international business unit in June after heading Lazada’s Thailand and Vietnam operations. This week, the Chinese parent disclosed it invested $912.5 million in its Southeast Asian arm -- taking the year’s capital influx to $1.3 billion.

“Europe is a very big market obviously and for most of the European brands, their largest retail partner is Alibaba Group because of their sales in China and in other markets,” Dong said in an interview in Singapore. “We go where the brands want us to go.”

A European push by Lazada would mark a revival in Alibaba’s global efforts, which slowed in recent years in the face of torrid competition from Amazon and Tencent Holdings Ltd.-backed Sea Ltd. The Chinese company has also had a mixed record beyond its home turf. It dipped a toe in US retail by launching San Mateo, California-based 11 Main Inc. before its record 2014 IPO, only to sell the niche e-commerce site shortly after.

In 2016, Alibaba won a foothold in Southeast Asia by taking control of Lazada. Just a year later, co-founder Jack Ma declared Alibaba could some day become the world’s fifth-largest economy, serving some 2 billion people -- a boast that was covered widely at the time but has rarely been mentioned since Covid-19, a punishing government crackdown and economic downturn extinguished its once rapid pace of growth. Ma himself became a target of Beijing, which killed Ant Group Co.’s IPO after the billionaire publicly criticized China’s state-dominated banking system in 2020.

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Given its woes at home, Alibaba is now once more intent on revitalizing the company by tapping overseas markets. Lazada has arguably been its most successful endeavor abroad of late, alongside the bargains website AliExpress that’s grown popular in emerging markets such as Brazil.