Alibaba Group: News

27 Nov 2023

Business

Why Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research lab

China-based Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has shut down its quantum computing research lab.

17 Nov 2023

Business

Alibaba scraps cloud unit spin-off, market value declines by $20bn

Alibaba Group's Hong Kong stock took a 10% dive after the company halted plans to separate its cloud division due to uncertainties stemming from US restrictions on exports to China of semiconductors for use in artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

Alibaba upgrades AI model Tongyi Qianwen, introduces new industry-specific models

Alibaba unveiled on Tuesday that it has enhanced its artificial intelligence (AI) model, Tongyi Qianwen, and launched a collection of AI models tailored for specific industries.

22 Sep 2023

Hong Kong

Alibaba subsidiary targets $1 billion in Hong Kong IPO

Cainiao Network Technology, the logistics subsidiary of Alibaba Group, is preparing to submit its application for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong as soon as next week.

Alibaba to soon release Tongyi Qianwen AI model for public

Alibaba has announced plans to make its artificial intelligence (AI) model, Tongyi Qianwen, available to the public, signaling that it has obtained regulatory approval in China for broader market deployment.

11 Sep 2023

Stock Market

Alibaba shares crash 4% as former CEO quits cloud business

Alibaba Group's shares fell over 4% following the unexpected exit of former CEO Daniel Zhang from the company's cloud computing business.

Alibaba takes AI fight to Meta with 2 open-source models

Alibaba's cloud computing unit, Alibaba Cloud, has launched two open-source AI models, Qwen-7B and Qwen-7B-Chat, each with seven billion parameters.

Alibaba unveils AI image generator that takes on Midjourney, DALL-E

Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba is in a race to establish itself as one of the leading names in artificial intelligence (AI).

11 Apr 2023

OpenAI

Can Alibaba's AI model 'Tongyi Qianwen' challenge OpenAI's dominance

Chinese companies are in a race to develop a challenger to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Most recently, Alibaba Group-backed SenseTime introduced an AI model and a chatbot.

Chatbot battle gets real! Now, Alibaba is testing ChatGPT rival

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has become the latest to board the generative AI bandwagon. The company confirmed that it is developing a ChatGPT-like tool.

30 Nov 2022

Jack Ma

Jack Ma living in Tokyo since Chinese crackdown on companies

Jack Ma, Chinese billionaire and the founder of Alibaba, has reportedly been living in Japan's Tokyo city for approximately six months, according to Financial Times reports on Tuesday.

18 May 2022

Jack Ma

Paytm Mall's valuation down 99% after Alibaba, Ant Financial's exit

Paytm Mall, One97 Communications' e-commerce arm, saw a significant drop in valuation as its key backers Alibaba and Ant Financial exited the firm.

20 Jan 2021

Jack Ma

Alibaba's Jack Ma, 'missing' for months, makes first public appearance

After months of being "missing," Alibaba and Ant founder Jack Ma has finally made a public appearance.

04 Jan 2021

Xi Jinping

Alibaba founder suspected to be missing after criticizing Chinese government

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has not been seen in public for more than two months now, a development that has sparked questions about his whereabouts.

18 Sep 2020

Paytm

Google removes Paytm from Play Store: Here's why

Paytm, one of India's most valuable start-ups, has suffered a major setback.

17 Aug 2020

India

NewsBytes Briefing: Trump may ban Alibaba, other Chinese companies

Over the weekend, a lot happened in the world of technology.

26 Jul 2020

India

Jack Ma summoned by Indian court over censorship allegations

China's Alibaba and its billionaire founder Jack Ma have both been summoned by an Indian court over allegations of censoring content and spreading fake news.

11 Jun 2020

WeChat

China orders Weibo to disable some features: Here's why

Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo has been ordered to disable some of its features for a week.

09 Apr 2020

TechCrunch

Big Basket raises $60mn to meet demand surge amid lockdown

Big Basket, one of India's biggest hyperlocal grocery start-ups, has raised $60 million as part of a bridge-round of funding from Alibaba and others.

17 Feb 2020

Huawei

Amid coronavirus outbreak, China resorts to online classes

The outbreak of coronavirus has hit all aspects of daily life in China, including the education system.

24 Jan 2020

Flipkart

Alibaba launches Yoli, a 'social-commerce' app to bag online deals

In a bid to expand its footprint in India, Chinese giant Alibaba has launched a new social commerce app called Yoli.

04 Jan 2020

Paytm

Logistics start-up XpressBees raises $10 million from Alibaba

Pune-based XpressBees has raised $10 million in funding from existing investor Alibaba, according to regulatory filings of the company.

10 Sep 2019

E-commerce

#AnEraEnds: Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma hangs up his boots

After spending two decades at Alibaba's helm, Jack Ma stepped down as Chairman of the e-commerce giant on Tuesday, his 55th birthday.

14 May 2019

Jack Ma

Jack Ma advises married-employees: "Sex for six days, six times"

Alibaba founder Jack Ma stoked up controversy recently after he advised his married employees to follow "669," that is, "Sex for six days, six times, with duration being the key."

29 Jan 2019

Reddit

Customer demands dress-pictures, seller sends of himself wearing them

Living in a world where people have received bricks instead of a smartphone they paid for, people are bound to get skeptical while shopping online.

15 Sep 2018

Xiaomi

Xiaomi creates new managerial positions to foster leadership

Amid increased scrutiny of governance and succession in mega Chinese tech firms, smartphone maker Xiaomi has announced that it is looking to create new managerial positions to build a second tier of leadership under CEO Lei Jun.

10 Sep 2018

Hollywood

Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma to step down in September 2019

Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, one of the world's richest business executives, has announced that he will step down as the executive chairman of Alibaba in September 2019.

09 Sep 2018

South Africa

Alibaba's Jack Ma isn't retiring, will announce his succession plans

Refuting an NYT report which claimed Jack Ma would be retiring from Executive Chairmanship of Alibaba group on Monday, South China Morning Post, a newspaper owned by the company, reported on Sunday that he would instead unveil his succession plans.

08 Sep 2018

Bill Gates

End of era: China's richest man Jack Ma announces retirement

Jack Ma, who serves as Executive Director of Alibaba, a company he founded in 1999 has announced his retirement. The business magnate will retire on Monday, September 10, according to reports.

13 Jul 2018

India

Mukesh Ambani overtakes Jack Ma to be Asia's richest person

India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has now become Asia's richest man, overtaking Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma.

13 Jun 2018

Paytm

Paytm Mall receives $225 million in funding from SoftBank, Alibaba

Paytm Mall, the independent e-commerce arm of digital payments platform Paytm, has received $225 million (Rs. 1509 crore) from Japan's SoftBank and China's Alibaba as the second and final tranche of its latest round of funding.

03 May 2018

Xiaomi

Xiaomi files for the biggest Chinese tech IPO since 2014

Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX).

25 Apr 2018

Tencent

Chinese tech firms apologize for sexist job adverts

Chinese tech firms are under scanner after a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report slammed them over gender-discriminatory job ads.

26 Mar 2018

Ford

Ford and Alibaba launch car vending machine in China

Ford and Chinese tech giant Alibaba have partnered to launch a car vending machine, called the Super Test Drive Center, in Guangzhou, China.

08 Mar 2018

Saudi Arabia

AR start-up Magic Leap raises $461 million from Saudi government

Florida-based augmented reality (AR) startup Magic Leap has raised $461 million in the second phase of its series D funding round.

01 Mar 2018

Zomato

Zomato raises Rs. 977cr from Alibaba-unit Ant Financial Services

Restaurant discovery and online food-ordering platform, Zomato, announced it has raised $150mn (Rs. 977cr) in a fresh funding round from Ant Financial Services Group, one of the world's leading digital financial services providers.

08 Feb 2018

India

UC Browser launches latest version in India; crosses 130mn users

Chinese tech giant Alibaba-owned UCWeb has announced a new version of its UC Browser in India, called UC Browser 12.0.

03 Feb 2018

Indian Startups

China's Alibaba leads BigBasket's $300-million funding round

Online grocery start-up BigBasket has raised $300 million in Series-E funding which was led by China's Alibaba Group. This is the largest investment raised by the company so far.

12 Nov 2017

Amazon

Singles' Day: Alibaba generates $25.3bn sales; more than Iceland's GDP

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's Singles' Day on 11th November saw the company make around 168.2 billion yuan ($25.3 billion) in sales - more than Iceland's GDP - in just 24-hours.

03 Nov 2017

E-commerce

China's online-shopping boom continues, Alibaba has an 'outstanding quarter'

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group posted stronger-than-expected third-quarter results with a massive jump in revenue as the online shopping boom continues in China.

10 Oct 2017

Singapore

Amazon gets beaten by malls and Alibaba in Singapore

US e-commerce giant Amazon's bid to expand into Southeast Asia has landed the firm in a bit of a pickle in Singapore.

05 Sep 2017

Unicorn

Zomato eyes $200m from Alibaba, may get the unicorn-tag back

According to reports, Zomato is currently engaged in negotiation with Alibaba and its payments affiliate Ant Financial to raise up to $200 million from them.

29 Aug 2017

Paytm

BigBasket eyes $200 million investment from Paytm Mall, Alibaba

According to reports, online marketplace Paytm Mall and its principal investor Alibaba has extended the exclusivity period of their negotiations with online grocer BigBasket for two weeks.

23 Aug 2017

India

Is UC Browser leaking your mobile data?

According to the IT Ministry, UC Browser is under the scanner for allegedly sending mobile data of Indian users to Chinese servers.

19 Aug 2017

YouTube

Now, China cracks down on VPN vendors

China has now upped the ante by warning e-commerce platforms against selling illegal virtual private networks (VPNs).

13 Jul 2017

India

Paytm buys majority stake in Insider.in for Rs. 35 crore

Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led Paytm has now acquired a majority stake in Insider.in for a little over Rs. 35 crore.

10 Jul 2017

Hollywood

Marvel wants a Chinese superhero, gimmick or good business strategy?

Reportedly, Walt Disney-owned US-based publishing giant Marvel will now work alongside Beijing-based firm NetEase to create the first Chinese comic superhero in its roster.

16 Jun 2017

X

Amazon secures patent to prevent online price comparison in stores

After recently launching its physical retail stores, Amazon has been granted a patent that will prevent consumers from using the in-store Wi-Fi to check product price listings online.

09 Jun 2017

Asia

Jack Ma gains $2.8 billion in one day

The founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma became Asia's richest man and the 14th wealthiest man in the world; his net worth surged from $8.5 billion to $41.8 billion this year.

08 May 2017

WeChat

China's Internet gets more shackles added to its existing burden

China already has a strongly fortified Internet firewall in place to block elements that the government considers to be a misfit in their present scheme of things.

23 Mar 2017

Flipkart

Will Indian e-commerce giants show profit anytime soon?

Currently, there are three major players in the Indian ecommerce space - Flipkart, Paytm and Snapdeal.

04 Dec 2016

Kunal Bahl

Snapdeal denies reports of Alibaba's acquisition interest

After reports sprung on China's Alibaba expressing its interest in acquiring Indian e-commerce portal Snapdeal, the Indian company denied the reports.

11 Nov 2016

Jack Ma

Alibaba's Singles' Day clocks over $5 billion in one hour

Alibaba Group's 'Singles' Day', a 24-hour shopping event held annually, garnered the online retail giant over $5 billion during the first hour of the shopping spree.

09 Aug 2016

Walmart

Jet.com to be acquired by Walmart for $3bn in cash

Walmart will be acquiring Jet.com — an online-only shopping site for $3 billion in cash, plus up to $300 million in shares.