Alibaba Outlines ‘Clear Cloud Strategy’ in Q3 2019 Earnings

Amidst growing political tensions and an economic slowdown in China, Alibaba continues to report revenue growth, in large part due to the continued expansion of its cloud computing arm — Alibaba Cloud (AliCloud). Alibaba Group’s core e-commerce business remains at the forefront of its business; however, the Group CEO Daniel Zhang noted in the company’s third-quarter 2019 earnings call that its growth “is also driven by the power of Alibaba’s cloud and data technology that helps expedite the digital transformation of millions of enterprises,” according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. “We started our cloud business nine years ago and over the last few years, our cloud business delivered solid top-line growth and established a leading position in China’s nascent cloud market,” said Zhang. Alibaba Cloud revenue reached $98 million in the third quarter, an 84 percent increase year over year. The company attributes this growth to increased spending from its enterprise customers. Alibaba also said that in December alone, Alibaba Cloud launched 674 new products and features — most of them related to its core cloud offerings as well as data intelligence, artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and security.