Alibaba Group is an Internet company that focuses on B2B, business management software, and online retail.  The company was started by Ma Yun (Jack Ma) around 1999.  The company is huge in China and plans to aggressively market themselves in the U.S.  They have even announced to be planning a $30 million advertising campaign starting Monday according to the WSJ.

Alibaba has also tripled their staff in the U.S.  Last quarter, the company’s net income dropped about 15% because of the company has been spending aggressively on marketing campaigns.  Alibaba even said that they plan to spend $200-$300 million on acquisitions by 2012.

Customers in the U.S. account for 15% of Alibaba’s visitors in their marketplace.  Yahoo! owns 44% in Alibaba.  And Alibaba.com operates Yahoo! China.  When Microsoft made the search engine deal with Yahoo!, Alibaba was left out.

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