Alibaba Group chief executive officer Lu Zhaoxi announced the appointment of Yu Yongfu, general manager of AutoNavi's Internet business, as new president of AutoNavi.
Effective from March 15, 2015, in this new role Yu will be responsible for the overall business of AutoNavi, which will continue to maintain its independent operation from Alibaba.
According to public files, UCWeb merged into Alibaba Group on June 11, 2014, and Alibaba's UC mobile business group was founded based on the company. At the same time, as former chairman and CEO of UCWeb, Yu was appointed president of UC mobile business group and joined Alibaba Group's strategic decision-making committee.
On July 18, 2014, Alibaba Group announced that AutoNavi, which was previously acquired by Alibaba, formally completed its privatization process and started full business integration with Alibaba Group. Following that, Yu took over AutoNavi's mobile Internet business unit.
