BEIJING, November 29 (TMTPost)— Alibaba Group’s iconic founder Jack Ma rarely urged the change and reform at the intranet as the tech giant he created more than two decades ago is facing more challenges from archrival PDD Holdings Inc.

Credit：Visual China

Replying to a staff post on Alibaba’s internal forumt, Ma called for change and correction and welcomed suggestions and advice from employees, especially innovative ideas. The post is about PDD’s market capitalization gap between Alibaba was narrowed to just US$8 billion as of Tuesday. According to a screenshot of the post which confirmed by Chinese news media outlets including The Paper, the creator said PDD’s closing gap of market value made a real shock and promoted him or her to write the post as a reminder and hope all the colleagues work together to regain traction. ”I believe All the Alibaba staff are witnessing and hearing, and I firmly believe Alibaba will change and make correction, ” Jack Ma commented on one of commentaries of the post that proposed streamlining the purchase and return.“Every great company is born in a winter. As the artificial intelligence (AI) era for e-commerce is right at its beginning, it is an opportunity for everyone as well as a challenge.”

While congratulating PDD for the rival’s successful decision, execution and efforts, Ma highlighted reform is a key for Alibaba’s comeback. The organization is respectable only if it can   adopt a reform to become a superpower in the future and get ready to implement it at whatever costs and sacrifice , Ma said. He also called for Alibaba to refocus on its mission and vision, namely, to make it easy doing business anywhere.

Ma’s reply came as PDD is on the brink of overtaking Alibaba in  market capitalization. The Nasdaq-listed shares of PDD settled 18% higher on Tuesday after China’s leading e-commerce platform posted much stronger-than-expected sales and earnings. The following day saw PDD market capitalization once topped Alibaba as shares climbed more than 4% before paring some of gains, and PDD market cap was surpassed by Alibaba. As of close on Wednesday, PDD stocks rose almost 2% and brought the market cap to US$188.3 billion, while Alibaba’s market cap dropped to US$189.92 billion as shares fell 2.7%.

 PDD posted revenue of RMB68.84 billion (US$9.43 billion) in the quarter ended September 30, exceeding by about 25% more than the average analysts’ estimate. The sales surged 94% from a year earlier, accelerating from the previous quarter’s 66% year-over-year (YoY) increase, and refreshed the record set in the second quarter, increasing around 32% sequentially.bottom line also beat the Wall Street expectation. Non-GAAP net income jumped 37% YoY to RMB17.027 billion in the third quarter, versus the expected RMB12.974 billion. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per American depositary share (ADS) that quarter rose nearly 35% YoY to RMB11.61, compared with projection of RMB8.81.

Financial results indicated PDD, the operator of Chinese discount shopping site Pinduoduo and its overseas sister Temu, is a big winner when consumers became more sensitive to price change amid uncertainty of economic recovery in China. PDD sales growth outrun major domestic rivals in the September quarter. JD.com’s net revenue increased 1.7% YoY, slowing down from the second quarter with a 7.6% YoY increase. Alibaba’s total revenue recorded a 9% YoY increase, and sales of its two online marketplaces--Taobao and Tmall Group gained 4% YoY.