Alibaba Has an Ad Business to Challenge Google, Amazon
If U.S. media sellers are worried about competing with Amazon’s burgeoning advertising business, wait until they run up against the e-commerce giant’s Chinese equivalent.
Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba filed to go public on Tuesday. In doing so, the fifteen-year-old company outlined its advertising business, which steps on Amazon’s turf as well as Google’s and Facebook’s and Yahoo’s.
Alibaba didn’t reveal how much money it makes from advertising, but it cited online marketing services first when listing its primary revenue streams. Mainly an e-commerce business, and it makes money through both purchases and when merchants advertise their wares.