Alibaba sees cloud computing as ‘core’ for future growth

“Cloud computing is one of Alibaba’s core strategies for the future,” Zhang said in the company’s most recent earnings call. “We believe this is a critical period for technological breakthrough and development in cloud computing and AI.”

In its Q3 FY2023 earnings report, Alibaba said its cloud business, which excludes revenue from services to other Alibaba businesses, generated US$2.9 billion in revenue. However, the segment still incurred a loss of about US$215 million in the quarter.

As of the third quarter of 2022, Alibaba was the fourth-largest cloud infrastructure service provider in the world with a 5% market share, according to Statista data. It still trails far behind Amazon Web Services (34%), Microsoft Azure (21%), and Google Cloud (11%).

According to its website, Alibaba Cloud currently operates in 28 regions around the globe, with 86 availability zones. But, 13 of these 28 regions are located in Mainland China. In contrast, Amazon Web Services is present in 31 regions, with 99 availability zones that serve 245 countries and territories.

Nevertheless, Zhang believes that Alibaba Cloud can become one of the top cloud-computing contenders globally as the boom of generative AI and other cutting-edge tech will lead to exponential growth in demand for computing power.