Alibaba Cloud offers discounts of up to 40 pc for international clients as it continues overseas drive
- Cloud unit will strengthen its ‘global partnership ecosystem’ through a series of new initiatives
- Alibaba Cloud’s overseas expansion drive comes as the US has stepped up scrutiny of Chinese cloud service providers
Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and cloud services unit of Alibaba Group Holding, is offering discounts of up to 40 per cent and technical support to its overseas partners as it seeks to accelerate its global expansion.
The company will strengthen its “global partnership ecosystem” through a series of new initiatives, including the launch of a training empowerment programme for partners and financial incentives to reward partners, according to a company press release on Monday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Alibaba Cloud, which is under the direct management of Alibaba chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang Yong, was the top cloud infrastructure services provider in mainland China last year, but its revenue growth has slowed amid competition from Huawei Technologies Co and China Telecom.
During the December quarter of 2022, Alibaba Cloud posted a 3 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue, marking the unit’s slowest quarterly growth last year.
Its market share in China dropped to 32.6 per cent in the second half of 2022 from 34.5 per cent in the first half, according to a report published by research firm IDC.
02:17
After long absence from China, Jack Ma makes rare appearance to visit school in Hangzhou
Alibaba Cloud stated in April that it would cut prices of its core products and services in China by up to 50 per cent starting May 7. The range of price cuts for global partners is up to 40 per cent, the company said in a separate post on its official WeChat account on Monday.
