Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group is a privately owned Hangzhou -based group of Internet-based e-commerce businesses including business to business online web portals, online retail and payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services

• began in 1999 with the web site Alibaba.com, a business to business portal to connect Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers

• its consumer to consumer portal Taobao, similar to eBay, features nearly a billion products and is one of the 20 most-visited websites globally

• Alibaba.com Limited , the primary company of Alibaba Group, is the world’s largest online business-to-business trading platform for small businesses

• The company’s English language portal Alibaba.com handles sales between importers and exporters from more than 240 countries and regions

• The Chinese portal 1688.com was developed for domestic business-to-business trade in China