Alibaba Group Holding Limited history, company profile (overview) and history video
Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese multinational holding company specializing in retail, e-commerce, internet, and technology. It is headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
The company was founded on April 4, 1999, by Jack Ma, a former English teacher, and his team of 17 friends and students. The founders started this company with the belief that the Internet would allow small companies to grow and compete more effectively in the domestic and global economies.
The company’s name was inspired by the character Ali Baba from the Middle Eastern folk tale collection “One Thousand and One Nights”. The reason behind the choice of this name was that it is easy to spell, globally known, and related to the phrase “Open Sesame”.
The company’s businesses are comprised of core commerce, cloud computing services, digital media and entertainment, innovation initiatives, payment services, financial services, and others. Around these businesses has developed a digital economy that consists of consumers, merchants, brands, retailers, third-party service providers, strategic alliance partners, and other businesses.
The businesses and services of the related and affiliated companies include: Taobao (one of the largest C2C marketplaces in the world), Tmall (one of the largest B2C marketplaces in the world), Freshippo, AliExpress, Alibaba.com (one of the largest B2B marketplaces in the world), Lazada, 1688.com, ele.me, Youku, DingTalk, Alimama, Alibaba Cloud, Cainiao Network, and Ant Financial.
With more than 66,000 employees, Alibaba Group is one of the world’s largest retailers and e-commerce companies, one of the largest Internet companies and artificial intelligence companies, one of the biggest venture capital companies, one of the biggest investment corporations in the world, and one of the world’s most admired companies by Fortune. According to Forbes, it is considered one of the World’s Most Valuable Brands and one of the Largest Public Companies in the World.
*Information from Forbes.com, Wikipedia.org, and www.alibabagroup.com.
**Video published on YouTube by “Companies History“.