Alibaba, one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world, has recently announced their plans to list its cloud computing business on the stock market in the upcoming 12 months. The split of operations into six divisions follows the Chinese giant’s disappointing financial quarter, with a 2% increase in cloud revenue falling short of analyst predictions.
Chairman Daniel Zhang explained, “We would love nothing more than to see one of these little Alibabas… becoming another big Alibaba, as big as the group company is right now.” The past year has been a challenge for Alibaba who has had to compete with rising e-commerce giants such as Pinduoduo and TikTok, the social media platform. In addition, they have had to keep up with the ever-changing restrictions across China in response to the pandemic, as many businesses and citizens continue to feel the strain of the economy.
Cloud computing services and infrastructure remain relevant, making up nine percent of Alibaba’s total revenue and earning a total of $2.7 billion in the past quarter alone. Apart from traditional cloud services, the company also offers private cloud solutions in addition to artificial intelligence technologies, such as its very own implementation of natural language processing open source platform, GPT.
Alibaba is a Chinese multinational technology company that specializes in e-commerce, retail, internet, AI and technology. It was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma and Peng Lei along with 17 other colleagues. It is known for its online marketplaces, such as Taobao, Tmall, and AliExpress, and it also has other services such as AliPay and AliCloud. The company also has its own retail stores called Hema Xiansheng, and it is a major participant in the Chinese logistics industry.
Daniel Zhang is a Chinese businessman and executive chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. He formerly held the positions of CEO and Chief Creative Officer of the company and also worked as chief operating officer prior to that. He joined the company in 2007 and since then he is responsible for driving the company’s overall strategy and reinventing the customer experience in Alibaba’s portfolio of businesses.
