Alibaba Group Leans Into Cloud Computing Business

This week Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang told CNBC that its cloud computing arm, also known as AliCloud, will be its “main business” in the future. “We strongly believe that every business in the future will be powered by cloud. We are very happy to build this cloud infrastructure in a new digital era and support all business,” Zhang told the news organization. Currently, Alibaba’s growth is largely led by the growth of its core commerce segment. However, its cloud compute business is quickly catching up. The company reported that total revenue grew 54 percent from the previous quarter in its second quarter earnings call with investors this week. According to the Seeking Alpha transcript of the call, Alibaba CFO Maggie Wei Wu said this was primarily driven by “the robust revenue growth of our China commerce retail business,” which grew 56 percent from the previous quarter, as well as the consolidation of its Ele.me and Cainiao Network segments, and “strong revenue growth of Alibaba Cloud.”