Alibaba Cloud's Livestream Event Draws Millions, Sparks Cloud Computing Price War

Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing branch of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA, captured the attention of over 2.3 million viewers with its inaugural livestream event featuring prominent Chinese influencer Luo Yonghao on Taobao, an affiliated e-commerce platform. 

The event showcased various cloud computing solutions, including Alibaba Cloud Drive for Enterprises, Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service, and Object Storage Service, attracting around 1,000 companies to order and inquire about the products during the broadcast.

This collaboration with Luo aims to extend the reach and understanding of cloud computing benefits among a broader audience and businesses, highlighting the importance of advanced public cloud services, Yicai Global reports. 

Following a series of price reductions by Alibaba Cloud last year, competitors like Tencent Holding Ltd TCEHY, China Telecom’s state Cloud, and JD.Com, Inc JD JD Cloud also slashed their prices significantly, indicating a price war among major players.

Despite recent price cuts, including a 20% reduction on all products by Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud opted not to follow suit this time. 

Alibaba Cloud’s Senior Vice President, Liu Weiguang, emphasized that these price reductions are part of a long-term strategic approach rather than short-term competitive tactics. He explained that cloud computing operates on economies of scale, where an increased customer base can significantly reduce procurement, research, and development costs, thereby allowing for lower product pricing. 

In 2023, Alibaba tapped CEO Eddie Wu as the chair and CEO of the cloud business on an interim basis. Co-founder Jack Ma dumped the $11 billion cloud business IPO amid a weak economy and depressed investor sentiments.

The stock lost over 26% in the last 12 months. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via Invesco Golden Dragon China ETF PGJ and Tidal Trust II CoreValues Alpha Greater China Growth ETF CGRO.

Price Action: BABA shares traded higher by 1.44% at $73.40 premarket on the last check Monday.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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