Alibaba’s bet on the fluffy white stuff paying off, revenue up 138%

Alibaba's cloud ambitions and investments began to pay off during the Chinese tat purveyor's third quarter, with revenue attributed to the fluffy white stuff up 138 per cent, to $102m (£67m).

However, that was still a mere drop in the ocean, compared with its consumer sales. Overall sales increased 32 per cent to $3.5bn (£2.3bn) in the third quarter.

Yet the company has firmly set its sites on global expansion through its cloud business.

Earlier this month Alicloud opened its second data centre in Silicon Valley. The company has also poured $1bn into its cloud war chest.

"We are positive about the development of the cloud computing business as more customers look for computing solutions at a reasonable cost and sophistication in managing their increasingly complex IT infrastructures," said the company. ®