Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA): Business Model Canvas [Dec-2025 Updated]

You're looking to cut through the noise and really understand how the giant is making its money now, right? After two decades analyzing these behemoths, I can tell you the Business Model Canvas for Alibaba Group Holding Limited isn't just about Taobao anymore; it's a complex machine powered by its 'AI-driven, user-first' mandate. We're seeing them pour capital into proprietary tech, like the Qwen LLM, while still driving massive consumer engagement-think over 50 million 88VIP members-and backing it all with a war chest that includes about $41 billion in net cash as of late 2025. So, let's break down exactly how these nine blocks fit together to power their next phase of growth, from cloud services generating CN¥29.6 billion last quarter to their global logistics push.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Key Partnerships

You're looking at the core alliances Alibaba Group Holding Limited is banking on to drive growth outside of its core e-commerce transaction volume. These partnerships are critical for extending their reach in cloud, AI, and global logistics.

NBA China for Cloud and AI Fan Engagement

Alibaba Cloud is now the official cloud and AI partner for NBA China under a multi-year deal. This is about more than just hosting; it's about embedding Alibaba's intelligence into the fan experience across digital platforms.

The partnership will debut AI-powered 360-degree real-time replay technology during events like the NBA Finals. Furthermore, NBA China will use Alibaba Cloud's AI to build a dedicated model fine-tuned from the Tongyi Qianwen large language model series. This custom model will generate personalized content for the NBA App, including historical data and player analysis.

This strategic alignment shows up in the numbers for Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group. In Q1 FY26, this segment reported revenue jumping 26% year-over-year, reaching 33.4 billion yuan, fueled by enterprise demand for AI services. This deal strengthens Alibaba Cloud's presence in global sports media.

Apple for Developing AI Features Tailored for iPhones in China

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is powering Apple Intelligence features for iPhones in China, a move to help Apple counter declining sales against local rivals. This partnership requires leveraging Alibaba's infrastructure and AI models to navigate China's strict regulatory environment for consumer-facing AI services.

Specifically, Alibaba is reportedly offering its artificial intelligence models and infrastructure, including technology derived from its Qwen 2.5 AI model, to power these features. Alibaba chairperson Joseph Chung-Hsin Tsai confirmed the collaboration at the World Governments Summit 2025 in Dubai.

The need for this local partnership is clear: Apple's sales in Greater China dropped significantly in late 2024. Analysts suggest the lack of advanced, locally compliant AI features was a key factor. The collaboration is seen as a significant win for Alibaba in the competitive Chinese AI industry.

Global Logistics Partners for Cainiao's Cross-Border Network

Cainiao Group, Alibaba's logistics arm, is aggressively expanding its physical and partnership footprint globally to support cross-border e-commerce. This effort is centered on achieving faster delivery times for international parcels.

Cainiao announced the expansion of its Global 5-Day Delivery service to six new key markets-Vietnam, Hungary, Singapore, Qatar, the Philippines, and Austria-with the upgrade set for completion by the end of 2025. This is supported by deepening partnerships, such as the long-term strategic deal with Qatar Airways Cargo, which will more than double weekly freight flights on core China-Europe routes.

The scale of this operation is massive. In fiscal year 2024 (ending March 2024), Cainiao processed over 5 million cross-border and international packages daily on average. The network currently covers nearly 200 countries and regions, with deep operations in 50 countries, including 18 overseas sorting centers and over 3 million square meters of cross-border logistics warehouses.

The demand is surging, too. Since April 2025, overseas parcel volumes from external merchants using Cainiao's local delivery services have surged by more than 200%.

Here's a snapshot of Cainiao's physical cross-border network scale:

Metric	Value
Daily Avg. Cross-Border/Intl. Packages (FY2024)	5 million+
Countries with Deep Operations	50
Overseas Sorting Centers	18
Cross-Border Warehouse Space	3 million sq. meters+
Weekly Chartered Flights/Space	Approx. 170

Open-Source Community for the Qwen Large Language Model (LLM) Ecosystem

Alibaba Cloud's commitment to open source, particularly with the Qwen family of models, is a key partnership strategy to build a broad ecosystem. This contrasts with the proprietary approach of many U.S. competitors.

The Qwen model has achieved significant global traction. As of September 2025, it captured over 12.3% of the global market, ranking fourth worldwide. Within China's enterprise LLM market in H1 2025, Alibaba's Tongyi led with a 17.7% share. The daily total token consumption for enterprise LLMs in China hit 10.2 trillion in H1 2025, a 363% increase from the second half of 2024.

The community scale is impressive:

• Qwen family has over 600 million downloads.
• More than 170,000 derivative models have been created by developers.
• Model Studio, Alibaba's AI development platform, has served over 1 million corporate and individual users.
• ModelScope, China's largest open-source AI community, serves over 18 million users and hosts 100,000 models.

This open approach is driving adoption, with reports showing that researchers at institutions like Stanford University and UC Berkeley developed top-performing models using Qwen for costs under $50 or $30, respectively.

Strategic Merchants and Brands on Tmall for Exclusive Product Launches

Tmall continues to serve as the premium marketplace, focusing on attracting and growing established and niche brands through strategic support and exclusive launch mechanisms.

The platform's focus on brand growth delivered tangible results in 2024: over 4,100 brands on Tmall generated over RMB100 million in annual sales each, with their total sales increasing 18% year-on-year. Tmall is actively incentivizing new and existing partners in 2025 through programs like the 'Blue Star Plan 2025.'

Key incentives supporting these partnerships include:

• The commission rebate pilot saw 90% of participating brands achieve double-digit growth.
• The 'Tmall Super Launch' campaign has enabled 34,000 new product launches.
• Mature new merchants meeting transaction standards can earn a reward of up to RMB2.5 million in Alibaba Mama traffic coupons.
• New merchants can receive up to 15 free benefits, including 30 days of interest-free credit loans.

The platform is also doubling down on AI tools for merchants, with an advanced marketing bidding model that boosts campaign ROI by an average of 12%.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Key Activities

You're looking at the core engine room of Alibaba Group Holding Limited as of late 2025. The key activities are heavily weighted toward technology and global expansion, moving beyond just domestic retail dominance. Here's the quick math on what they are actively doing to drive value.

Developing and deploying Qwen and other proprietary AI models

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is aggressively pushing its proprietary AI models, primarily the Qwen family, as a foundational technology across its ecosystem and for external developers. This is a major operational focus, evidenced by the scale of open-source adoption.

• The open-source Qwen series features models ranging from 0.5 billion to 110 billion parameters.
• As of October 31, 2025, more than 180,000 derivative models had been developed using the Qwen family on Hugging Face.
• The Qwen family has achieved over 600 million downloads globally.
• Over 1 million corporate and individual users have used Qwen on Model Studio since its launch.
• Qwen2.5 Math, with 72 billion parameters, solves math problems with 84% accuracy.
• The latest Qwen 2.5 models were pre-trained on a dataset including up to 18 trillion tokens.
• Qwen 2.5 Coder supports over 92 programming languages.
• Over 90,000 enterprise users deployed Qwen AI through Model Studio as of 2025.
• More than 2.2 million corporate users access Qwen AI services through DingTalk.
• The Qwen App surpassed 10 million downloads in its first week of public beta launch.

Operating and maintaining massive cloud and AI infrastructure globally

The Cloud Intelligence Group is a primary growth driver, directly fueled by the AI model development. The company is making substantial capital commitments to maintain this infrastructure lead.

For the quarter ending September 2025, Alibaba Cloud revenue hit 39.8 billion yuan (US$5.6 billion), marking a 34% year-over-year increase. This growth is underpinned by AI demand, with AI-related product revenue recording its ninth consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth. Revenue from external cloud customers grew 29% year-over-year in that same quarter. To support this, Alibaba deployed approximately RMB120 billion in capital expenditure over the past four quarters toward AI and cloud infrastructure. Furthermore, the company reaffirmed a plan to spend $53 billion over three years on cloud and AI infrastructure.

Here's a look at the scale and recent financial performance:

Metric	Value (Latest Reported)	Context/Period
Cloud Revenue (Q3 2025)	39.8 billion yuan	Quarter ending September 30, 2025
Cloud Revenue YoY Growth (Q3 2025)	34%	Quarter ending September 2025
AI-Related Revenue Growth	Triple-digit	Ninth consecutive quarter
Cloud Regions Served Globally	34 regions	As of March 31, 2025
Cloud Capex (Past Four Quarters)	Approx. RMB120 billion	Past four quarters ending September 2025

Managing core e-commerce platforms (Taobao/Tmall) and quick commerce expansion

The core China commerce business remains massive, though it is experiencing competitive pressure. The strategy involves driving engagement through loyalty programs and aggressively expanding the quick commerce segment.

For 2025, Taobao was the world's largest online marketplace by Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) at $723.8 billion, with Tmall ranking second at $682.7 billion. In the fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter, sales at the Taobao and Tmall Group rose 12% to RMB71.08 billion. Customer Management Revenue (CMR) for the September quarter increased 10% year-over-year to RMB78.9 billion (US$11 billion).

The quick commerce business is seeing rapid top-line growth, with revenue increasing 60% year-over-year in the September quarter. Management noted that the per-order Unit Economics (UE) loss in quick commerce has been cut by approximately 50% since July/August 2025.

• Brands surpassing RMB100 million in GMV during the 2025 6.18 Festival: 453.
• Brands surpassing RMB1 billion in sales during the 2025 11.11 Festival: Nearly 600.
• Paying members in the 88VIP membership program: Over 42 million.

Building out the global logistics network for cross-border commerce (AIDC)

Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC) is a key focus for global revenue capture, supported by its logistics arm, Cainiao. The cross-border business is growing robustly.

AIDC's annual revenue increased by 29% in FY2025. For the September quarter, AIDC revenue grew 10%, generating approximately $5 billion in a single quarter. The international retail business, driven by AliExpress and Trendyol, saw a 33% revenue increase in FY2025. The B2B wholesale business revenue, propelled by cross-border value-added services, increased 12% year-over-year in the quarter ended June 30, 2024.

Cainiao Global Supply Chain announced a comprehensive upgrade of its overseas warehouses on July 2, 2025, operating over 20 warehouses covering 10 core countries in the Asia Pacific region. The fulfillment rate for same-day outbound orders from these APAC warehouses reached 99.9%. The AIDC segment posted an Adjusted EBITDA profit of RMB 162 million in the September quarter.

Investing in user experience and competitive pricing to drive consumer engagement

Driving engagement on Taobao and Tmall involves significant investment in consumer perks and streamlined shopping mechanics, often centered around major sales events.

During the 2025 6.18 Festival, the buyer base grew at a double-digit rate year-on-year, setting an all-time high for the event. For the 2024 11.11 Festival, Alibaba offered RMB30 billion ($4.3 billion) in vouchers and subsidies. Consumers could enjoy the popular RMB10 Billion Subsidy program with discounts up to 80% on many branded products. Furthermore, merchants using AI-aided customer support experienced a 30% increase in conversion rates year-over-year during the 2025 11.11 event. Taobao Live saw brands using the "Taobao Instant Commerce" channel record a 198% increase in daily average on-demand orders compared to September 2025. The platform's pricing strategy is described as having 'very lenient pricing' and 'penetrative pricing,' with Taobao hardly charging any fee.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Key Resources

You're looking at the core assets Alibaba Group Holding Limited relies on to run its massive operations as of late 2025. These aren't just line items on a balance sheet; they're the engines driving their competitive edge.

Proprietary Qwen LLM and Custom AI Accelerators/Chips

Alibaba Group Holding Limited's investment in proprietary artificial intelligence is substantial, centered around the Qwen large language model family. The latest iteration, Qwen3-Max-Thinking, scored a perfect 100 percent on the AIME 2025 and HMMT reasoning tests, matching OpenAI's top model on those benchmarks.

The broader Qwen family has seen massive adoption. Since the first generation launched in 2023, over 600 million downloads have been recorded, resulting in more than 170,000 derivative models created. Over 1 million corporates and individuals use Qwen on Model Studio, Alibaba Cloud's AI development platform. The company has also committed to a significant capital expenditure plan, stating it will progress with its RMB 380 billion investment plan in AI and cloud infrastructure over the next three years.

Here's a snapshot of the AI model's performance:

AI Model Variant	Key Performance Metric	Result/Benchmark
Qwen3-Max-Thinking	AIME 2025 Score	100 percent
Qwen3-Max-Thinking	Comparison to Competitors	Matches or beats Claude Opus 4, DeepSeek V3.1, Grok 4, and GPT-5 Pro
Qwen Family (Total)	Total Downloads	Over 600 million
Qwen on Model Studio	Users (Corporates and Individuals)	Over 1 million

Vast Data Centers and Cloud Computing Infrastructure

Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group is clearly a major focus, evidenced by the heavy capital expenditure. For the quarter ended June 30, 2025, revenue for this segment grew 26 percent year-over-year, and for the September quarter 2025, like-for-like growth accelerated to 34 percent. This growth is fueled by infrastructure expansion.

The company currently operates 91 availability zones across 29 regions globally. This infrastructure is critical for supporting the triple-digit year-over-year growth seen in AI-related product revenue for the eighth consecutive quarter.

• Global Regions: 29
• Global Availability Zones: 91
• Cloud Revenue Growth (Q ended June 30, 2025): 26 percent YoY
• AI Product Revenue Growth: Triple-digit YoY for 9th quarter

Financial Reserves for Strategic Moves

Alibaba Group Holding Limited maintains a strong balance sheet to fund its aggressive reinvestment strategy. As of a late 2025 report, the company cited having $41 billion in net cash to support strategic investments and buybacks. This commitment to shareholder return was evident in fiscal year 2025, where they repurchased US$11.9 billion of shares, resulting in a 5.1 percent net reduction in outstanding shares.

However, you have to watch the cash flow; the free cash flow for the quarter ended June 30, 2025, was an outflow of RMB 18,815 million (US$2,626 million), largely due to increased cloud infrastructure expenditure and investments in quick commerce. For a more precise look at the liquid assets on the balance sheet as of June 30, 2025:

Financial Metric	Amount (RMB)	Amount (USD Equivalent)
Cash and Other Liquid Investments (as of June 30, 2025)	RMB 585,663 million	US$81,755 million
Share Repurchases (Fiscal Year 2025)	N/A	US$11.9 billion
Declared Dividends (FY 2025)	N/A	US$4.6 billion

Taobao/Tmall's Massive User Base

The core e-commerce platforms remain a huge resource, especially in terms of loyal, high-value customers. The 88VIP paid membership program, which caters to the ecosystem's highest-spending consumers, surpassed 50 million members as of March 2025, showing continued year-over-year double-digit growth. This loyalty base is being further integrated across the ecosystem.

The Taobao and Tmall Group is the company's largest revenue contributor. For the quarter ended March 31, 2025, this segment accounted for 38.6 percent of Alibaba Group Holding Limited's total revenue. The annual fee for the 88VIP upgrade is RMB 88 for existing members with sufficient points.

Cainiao's Smart Logistics Network

Cainiao Group is strategically doubling down on international logistics and technology, having divested its domestic self-operated express arm. Its focus is on building out a global smart logistics network. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, Cainiao's revenue was approximately RMB 101.272 billion. The company's cross-border parcel network is extensive, reaching over 200 countries and regions and utilizing 18 overseas sorting centers.

Cainiao processes over 1.5 billion cross-border parcels annually, supporting more than 100,000 merchants and brands. A key metric showing recent growth is the surge in local delivery: overseas parcel volumes from external merchants using Cainiao's local delivery services have jumped by more than 200 percent since April 2025. Furthermore, the 'Global 5-Day Delivery' service is expanding to six new Eurasian markets by the end of 2025.

Here's the scale of Cainiao's international footprint:

• Cross-Border Parcel Network Reach: Over 200 countries and regions
• Overseas Sorting Centers: 18
• Annual Cross-Border Parcels Processed: Over 1.5 billion
• External Merchant Local Delivery Volume Growth (since April 2025): Over 200 percent
• New Global 5-Day Delivery Markets (by end of 2025): Six

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Value Propositions

For Consumers:

• Seamless, AI-personalized shopping experience, evidenced by the 50 million+ 88VIP members cohort, which showed double-digit growth year-over-year in Q3 2025.
• Rapid delivery investment, though contributing to a 71% decline in adjusted earnings per American Depository Share (ADS) in Q2 fiscal year 2026, signals a commitment to speed.

For Merchants:

• Access to the largest China consumer market, reflected in the China commerce retail business revenue of $17.7 billion in Q3 2025.
• AI-powered operational tools adoption: Over 50% of the approximately 200,000 merchants on Alibaba.com were already using AI applications weekly as of early 2025, with a target of 100% adoption by the end of 2025.
• This strategic focus is backed by a pledged investment of RMB 380 billion (approximately US$52 billion) over the next three years for AI and cloud infrastructure upgrades.

For Enterprises:

• AI-ready cloud solutions via Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, which posted revenue of $4.35 billion in Q3 2025, a 13% year-over-year increase.
• The Qwen model-as-a-service ecosystem shows massive scale: The Qwen family has over 600 million downloads and more than 170,000+ derivative models created globally.
• Over 1 million corporates and individuals have used Qwen on Model Studio, Alibaba's AI development platform.
• Specific model performance: Deploying the Qwen2.5-72B model achieved a 92% increase in concurrency and a 91% boost in tokens per second (TPS) on PAI-EAS.
• This is supported by a commitment to invest $53 billion over three years in cloud computing and AI infrastructure as of April 2025.

For Global Buyers:

Alibaba Group's International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC) delivered 22% year-over-year revenue growth in the quarter ending March 31, 2025, reaching RMB 33,579 million (US$4,627 million), driven by cross-border commerce.

Platform/Metric	Value/Amount	Context/Period
International Commerce Retail Revenue	RMB 108,465 million ($14.9 billion)	Q3 2025
AliExpress Contribution to International Retail Revenue Growth	25% of 33% YoY increase	Q3 2025
Alibaba.com Revenue	RMB 14.1 billion (about $1.9 billion)	Fiscal Year 2025
Alibaba.com Revenue Change YoY	Down 7%	Fiscal Year 2025
New Paying Buyers Growth on Alibaba.com	80% growth	Calendar Year 2025 (after)
New Suppliers Growth on Alibaba.com (Global)	More than 40% growth	Calendar Year 2025 (after)
SMEs Adopting AI Tools for Cross-Border Trade	63%	September 2025 Research

Low-cost, cross-border sourcing via Alibaba.com is seeing increased digital sourcing importance, with the number of orders placed by European buyers increasing by 75% year-on-year in February 2025.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Customer Relationships

You're looking at how Alibaba Group Holding Limited keeps its massive user base engaged and spending across its ecosystem, which is a critical area given the intense competition in China's retail space. The relationship strategy is heavily focused on premium loyalty, AI-driven support, and deep integration across its various services.

Dedicated 88VIP Loyalty Program for High-Value Consumers

The 88VIP program remains the cornerstone for retaining the highest-spending consumers. As of March 2025, this paid membership successfully attracted over 50 million members. This base continues to expand, as evidenced during the 11.11 Shopping Festival in late 2025, where daily active buyers among 88VIP members increased by 31% year-over-year, pushing the total membership base past 53 million. The value proposition is being enhanced by integrating it with a broader, cross-platform loyalty scheme.

Here's a look at the scale and integration benefits for these top-tier customers:

• 88VIP members are the most engaged power shoppers, historically spending nine times that of non-members annually.
• Top-tier members now receive Fliggy's premium F5 membership, which includes gold status with 31 hotel chains, such as Marriott and Hilton.
• Benefits are being upgraded to include increased exclusive coupons and a three-month free Freshippo membership.

AI-Aided Customer Service (e.g., Dianxiaomi) Handling 300 Million Queries During 11.11

Alibaba Group Holding Limited deployed significant AI resources to manage customer interactions, especially during peak sales events. During the 2025 11.11 Shopping Festival, Dianxiaomi, the AI-powered customer service assistant on Taobao and Tmall, handled a staggering 300 million queries. This scale of automation directly impacts merchant performance; those using AI-aided customer support saw their conversion rates rise by 30% year-over-year during the event.

Integrated Online-to-Offline (New Retail) Experience with Unified Loyalty Points

The customer relationship strategy now explicitly merges online commerce with physical and lifestyle services through a unified loyalty framework. This 'New Retail' approach encourages engagement across Taobao, Tmall, Ele.me (food/goods delivery), Fliggy (travel), and Freshippo (grocery). The goal is to nurture a holistic shopping culture by rewarding points for purchases regardless of the channel. The synergy is showing results; brands on Tmall utilizing the 'Taobao Instant Commerce' channel saw daily average on-demand orders jump by 198% compared to September levels during 11.11. Furthermore, Fliggy, integrated into this ecosystem, recorded GMV net of refunds growth of over 30%.

The cross-platform engagement metrics are summarized below:

Platform/Metric	Key Statistic (Late 2025)	Context
Dianxiaomi Queries Handled (11.11)	300 million	AI customer service volume during the peak shopping festival
AI Support Conversion Rate Increase (YoY)	30%	Year-over-year conversion rate improvement for merchants using AI support
Taobao Instant Commerce Order Growth (vs. Sept)	198%	Daily average on-demand orders for brands using the channel during 11.11
Fliggy GMV Net of Refunds Growth	Over 30%	Growth driven by cross-platform synergies

Self-Service and Developer-Focused Tools for Cloud and AI Customers

For Alibaba Cloud Intelligence customers, the relationship is built on providing powerful, self-service tools that reduce operational friction. The company expanded its proprietary Qwen LLM family, with the Qwen 2.5 series models available in parameter sizes ranging from 7 billion to 72 billion. To support merchant strategy, the AI Business Advisor tool generated over five million analytical reports since October. Infrastructure improvements also directly benefit developer efficiency; new ECS instances offer a 20% boost in computing efficiency, and network acceleration via eRDMA can improve high-performance computing support by up to 50%.

Developer empowerment tools include:

• Qwen 2.5-coder powers Tongyi Lingma, an AI coding assistant.
• Model Studio offers new AI development tools like Workflow and Agent for multi-agent collaboration.
• Alibaba Cloud Container Compute Service (ACS) launched internationally in January 2025 to reduce infrastructure management complexity.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Channels

The Channels segment for Alibaba Group Holding Limited in late 2025 is characterized by a multi-pronged digital and physical distribution network, deeply integrated with its AI capabilities.

Core e-commerce platforms: Taobao, Tmall, AliExpress, Lazada

The primary consumer-facing channels remain the massive domestic platforms, Taobao and Tmall, which together boast monthly active users (MAUs) of over 800 million. The high-value consumer cohort, 88VIP members, exceeded 50 million as of the quarter ended March 31, 2025. Internationally, the International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC), which manages Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol, and Alibaba.com, saw its annual revenue increase by 29% in Fiscal Year 2025. AliExpress alone serves over 150 million consumers across more than 200 countries and regions.

Here's a look at the scale across the key e-commerce properties:

Platform Group	Metric	Latest Reported Figure
Taobao and Tmall Group (TTG)	Monthly Active Users (MAUs)	Over 800 million
88VIP Loyalty Program	Membership Count (as of Q4 FY2025)	Exceeded 50 million
AliExpress (International Retail)	Quarterly Revenue (Q4 FY2025)	RMB27,603 million (US$3,804 million)
International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC)	Annual Revenue Growth (FY2025)	29%
Singles' Day 2024	Brands surpassing RMB1 billion GMV	45 brands

Cloud services: Alibaba Cloud (direct sales and partner channels)

Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group is a significant channel for enterprise technology adoption, heavily driven by AI workloads. For the quarter ended September 30, 2025, the Cloud Intelligence Group revenue grew 34% year-over-year. In the quarter ended March 31, 2025, the segment's revenue was RMB30,127 million (US$4,152 million), an 18% increase year-over-year. AI-related product revenue achieved triple-digit year-over-year growth for the ninth consecutive quarter (as of Q2 FY2026). By the end of fiscal Q1 2026, the annual revenue run rate approached $19 billion. By March 31, 2025, Alibaba Cloud provided services across 34 regions worldwide.

Local services apps: Amap (navigation) and Ele.me (delivery)

The consumption platform integrates daily life services. Amap, the navigation app, hit a record 360 million daily active users on October 1, 2025. Its 'Amap Street Stars' feature averaged over 70 million daily active users in October 2025, covering recommendations for 1.6 million local businesses across 300 cities at launch. To drive engagement, Amap committed over RMB1 billion in subsidies for consumer transportation and offline spending. Ele.me, the delivery service, has achieved a food delivery market share of approximately 40%.

Enterprise collaboration: DingTalk (intelligent workplace platform)

DingTalk serves as a key channel for enterprise software and AI integration. The platform reached 700 million users by the close of 2023. By the end of 2023, its corporate user base hit 25 million, with daily active paid users topping 28 million (as of March 2024).

New consumer hardware: Quark AI Glasses

Alibaba launched its first self-developed smart eyewear, Quark AI Glasses, on November 27, 2025, directly through channels like Tmall and in over 600 stores across 82 cities in China. The device is designed to act as a hands-free gateway to the consumer ecosystem.

Pricing and specifications for the initial models:

Model	Starting Price (RMB)	Starting Price (USD Equivalent)	Key Feature
Quark AI Glasses S1	¥3,799	Around $537	Up to 24 hours of use (swappable dual battery)
Quark AI Glasses G1	¥1,899	$268	Lightweight (40 grams)

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Customer Segments

Alibaba Group Holding Limited serves a highly diversified set of customer segments across its integrated ecosystem, ranging from individual shoppers in China to global enterprises needing hyperscale cloud infrastructure.

Mass-market consumers in China (Taobao)

This segment is anchored by the Taobao platform, focusing on C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer) and increasingly value-driven B2C (Business-to-Consumer) commerce. The strategic push into quick commerce has directly impacted user engagement metrics.

• Taobao app Monthly Active Users (MAUs) saw a 25% year-over-year rise in early August 2025, driven by initiatives like Taobao Instant Commerce.
• Customer management revenue for the Alibaba China E-commerce Group (which includes Taobao and Tmall) increased 10% year-over-year to RMB78.9 billion (US$11 billion) in the September quarter of 2025.
• The typical Taobao user historically made 538 transactions per year.

Premium brands and high-value consumers (Tmall, 88VIP members)

Tmall targets established brands and consumers seeking premium, verified products. The 88VIP paid membership program locks in the highest-spending cohort within the ecosystem.

• The 88VIP membership base surpassed 56 million in the September quarter of 2025, continuing to expand at a double-digit year-over-year rate.
• In the 2024 11.11 Shopping Festival, around 300,000 brands participated on Tmall alone.
• Annual fees for 88VIP range from 88 yuan to 888 yuan, depending on user engagement levels.

Global consumers and small businesses (AliExpress, Alibaba.com)

This segment spans international B2C retail via AliExpress and global B2B wholesale via Alibaba.com, focusing on emerging markets and cross-border trade.

The International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC) is a key driver here. Here's a look at the scale:

Segment/Metric	Platform Focus	Latest Reported Figure (2025/2024)	Unit/Context
International Commerce Revenue (FY2025)	AIDC (AliExpress, Trendyol, Lazada)	RMB133.7 billion (approx. US$18.4 billion)	Full Fiscal Year Sales
Global Active Buyers	AliExpress	182 million	As of 2024
Global Reach	AliExpress	More than 200 countries	Customer Base Span
B2B Wholesale	Alibaba.com	Serves a global base, with US traffic accounting for 17.73% of website traffic (latest available data)	Website Traffic Share

Large enterprises and startups requiring cloud and AI infrastructure (Alibaba Cloud)

Alibaba Cloud targets businesses needing scalable computing power, with a massive current focus on supporting Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads.

• Cloud revenue for the September quarter of 2025 reached RMB 39.8 billion (US$5.6 billion), a 34% year-over-year increase.
• Revenue from external cloud customers grew 29% year-over-year in the same quarter.
• AI-related product revenue recorded its ninth consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth.
• The company pledged to invest at least 380 billion yuan (approximately US$53 billion) over three years in AI and cloud infrastructure.

Local service users (food delivery, mapping) in China

This segment, primarily driven by Amap (mapping/navigation) and Ele.me (food delivery), is integrated into the broader consumption platform strategy.

• Amap recorded a record peak in daily active users surpassing 360 million on October 1, 2025.
• The Local Services Group revenue for the September quarter of the prior year was RMB17.7 billion (US$2.5 billion), a 14% increase year-over-year.
• Intense price competition in the food delivery segment eroded short-term profitability for the group in 2025.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Cost Structure

You're looking at the expense side of the Alibaba Group Holding Limited engine as of late 2025, and it's clear the company is prioritizing long-term structural advantages over near-term margin protection. The cost structure reflects an aggressive, deliberate trade-off: sacrificing current profitability for dominance in AI and instant retail.

Heavy capital expenditure on AI and cloud infrastructure (scaling beyond RMB 380 billion plan)

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is channeling massive capital toward building out its AI and cloud backbone. The initial commitment to spend at least RMB 380 billion (or $52.4 billion) on AI and cloud infrastructure over the next three years is now being re-evaluated due to demand outpacing expectations. CFO Toby XU noted that over the past four quarters, the company deployed roughly 120 billion yuan in capital expenditure toward AI and cloud infrastructure. This front-loaded investment is strategic, mirroring early-stage growth cycles of global cloud leaders. For the quarter ending September 30, 2025, total Capital Expenditures soared 85% year-over-year to RMB 31.4 billion (approximately $4.4 billion), a direct strategic reallocation to support cloud infrastructure and the Qwen ecosystem.

The company anticipates its global data center energy use will be 10 times above the 2022 level by 2032, signaling sustained, high-level CapEx. Management has suggested the prior CNY 380 billion plan 'might be on the small side.'

The scale of this investment is best viewed in context:

Metric	Amount/Period	Source Context
AI & Cloud Capex (Past Four Quarters)	Roughly RMB 120 billion	Quarter ending September 30, 2025
Total Quarterly CapEx (Sep Qtr 2025)	RMB 31.4 billion	Up 85% year-over-year
Stated 3-Year AI/Cloud Plan	At least RMB 380 billion ($52.4 billion)	Announced early 2025
Reported Capital Expenditures (Sep Qtr 2025)	-126.6B CNY	Reported for Sep 30, 2025

Selling and marketing expenses (Q2 2025: CN¥32.47 billion) for user acquisition and quick commerce subsidies

To drive user engagement, especially in competitive segments like quick commerce, selling and marketing expenses are a significant outflow. For the second quarter of 2025, the reported selling and marketing expense was CN¥32.47 billion. Another filing for the quarter ended June 30, 2025, showed Sales and marketing expenses at RMB53,178 million (US$7,423 million), representing 21.5% of revenue, up from 13.4% in the same quarter of 2024. These funds support discounts and deals rolled out to entice users to shopping apps, particularly for fast delivery offerings.

Logistics and fulfillment costs for Cainiao and instant retail

The push for speed in the consumption business directly impacts fulfillment costs. Investment in quick commerce, such as "Taobao Instant Commerce," is a major driver of cash flow pressure, alongside cloud build-outs. Cainiao Group, Alibaba Group Holding Limited's logistics arm, is actively managing these costs through restructuring and strategic network expansion. Cainiao is leveraging its network of over 40 overseas warehouses in regions like Europe, the U.S., Southeast Asia, and Australia to build agile supply chain models. For exporters, Cainiao offers supportive measures including freight subsidies and warehousing guarantees, which represent a direct cost absorbed or subsidized by the group to maintain competitive international commerce.

Key logistics cost drivers include:

• Investment in "Taobao Instant Commerce" operations.
• Subsidies and guarantees for cross-border merchants via Cainiao.
• Building out a global network of e-commerce logistics hubs (e-hubs).
• Costs associated with next-day delivery services in Europe, such as the €2 (US$2.20) parcel delivery service in Spain and Portugal.

Technology and R&D costs for AI model development and open-sourcing

The commitment to AI leadership necessitates substantial, ongoing investment in research and development, particularly for the Qwen large language model (LLM). For the quarter ending September 30, 2025, product development expenses grew 26% year-over-year to RMB 15.7 billion. This spending is concentrated in AI training and cloud security systems. For the twelve months ending September 30, 2025, Alibaba's research and development expenses totaled $8.511B, an increase of 10.46% year-over-year. The annual R&D expense for the full year 2025 was $7.876B, an 8.83% increase from 2024.

R&D spending is directed to support the full-stack AI strategy, which includes developing proprietary foundation models like Qwen, which surpassed 10 million downloads in its first week of public launch. This investment aims to solve current business line issues and develop next-generation technology.

Here's a look at the R&D outlay:

• R&D Expenses (TTM ending Sep 30, 2025): $8.511B.
• Product Development Expenses (Sep Qtr 2025): RMB 15.7 billion.
• Year-over-year Product Development Growth: 26%.
• Annual R&D Expense (FY 2025 Estimate): $7.876B.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) - Canvas Business Model: Revenue Streams

You're looking at the core money-makers for Alibaba Group Holding Limited as of late 2025, which clearly shows a pivot toward high-tech infrastructure funding the traditional commerce engine. Honestly, the numbers reflect a company making aggressive, long-term bets.

Customer Management Revenue (CMR) from e-commerce advertising and commissions (Taobao/Tmall)

The engine of the China commerce side is still generating significant, growing revenue from advertisers and commissions on the Taobao and Tmall platforms. For the fiscal second quarter of 2025, the revenue from the Alibaba China E-commerce Group hit RMB 132.6 billion. Within that, the Customer Management Revenue (CMR) specifically grew by 10% year-over-year, reaching RMB78.9 billion (or US$11 billion) for that same quarter. To be fair, this growth rate was slightly lower than the 12% growth seen in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.

Here are the key components driving that CMR:

• The increasing penetration of Chen Zhan Tui (a monetization feature).
• The addition of software service fees.
• Strong performance during major shopping events like the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival.
• The 88VIP Membership base surpassed 53 million members.

Cloud Computing services revenue (Q2 2025)

This segment is definitely the growth star, fueled by massive AI demand. For the second quarter of 2025, the Cloud Intelligence Group revenue surged by 34% year-over-year, totaling RMB 29.6 billion-wait, checking the latest figures-the total revenue was actually RMB 39.8 billion (US$5.6 billion). Revenue from external customers, which is the key metric for open-market success, grew by 29%.

The AI component is what's really moving the needle:

Metric	Value/Status
AI-related product revenue growth	Triple-digit growth for the ninth consecutive quarter
AI products share of external customer revenue	Over 20%
China AI cloud market share	35.8%, ranking first

The company is clearly in a heavy investment phase, deploying approximately RMB 120 billion in capital expenditure toward AI and cloud infrastructure over the past four quarters.

International Commerce revenue (FY 2025: RMB 132.3 billion) from cross-border retail and wholesale

The International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC) is showing strong momentum, particularly in cross-border retail. For the full fiscal year 2025, AIDC achieved revenue of RMB 132.3 billion, marking a year-on-year increase of 29%. This growth was driven by businesses like AliExpress and Trendyol.

Looking at the most recent quarter available (Q2 2025), the segment revenue was about RMB 34.8 billion (roughly US$4.89 billion), up 10% year-over-year. Management is focused on improving unit economics, with AliExpress's Choice business showing sequential improvement.

Logistics services revenue (Cainiao) from fulfillment and value-added services

Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Limited's annual revenue for fiscal year 2025 reached 101.272 billion yuan, driven by its international logistics business. This is a key area of investment, especially in cross-border fulfillment solutions.

However, the most recent quarterly data point shows a temporary dip in reported revenue; for the quarter ended March 31, 2025, Cainiao revenue was RMB21,573 million (US$2,973 million), which was a 12% decrease year-over-year, attributed to increasing integration of logistics offerings into the e-commerce businesses.

Other revenue from Local Services and Digital Media & Entertainment

These segments contribute smaller, but growing, portions of the total revenue stream, often showing improvements in operating efficiency.

• Local Services Group revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2025, was RMB16,134 million (US$2,223 million), a 10% year-over-year increase, driven by order growth from Amap and Ele.me.
• Digital Media and Entertainment Group revenue for the same quarter was RMB5,554 million (US$765 million), showing a 12% year-over-year increase, with the segment's adjusted EBITA turning positive.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.