Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba’s digital media and entertainment segment posted revenues of $585 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2016 (Q4 2016), up 270% Year-on-Year from $158 million. The company credited the growth to its increasing revenue from “mobile value-added” products run by UCWeb which includes services like mobile search, news feeds and game publishing. A part of the media and entertainment segment growth is also credited Alibaba’s $4 billion acquisition of video streaming portal Youku Tudou. Alibaba recently invested Rs 200 crore into UCWeb’s India and Indonesia operations. In India, UC Browser crossed 100 million monthly active users (MAUs), while UCWeb’s news and content aggregation app UCNews announced that it would start compensating top bloggers, writers on its self-publishing/blogging platform. The company also has tie-ups with Colors TV, Fox Star Studios and other Bollywood production houses for content, and a partnership with Flipkart for browser integration. The group’s core ecommerce segment posted revenues of RMB 46.57 billion (~$6.7 billion) for the quarter, up 45% YoY from RMB 32.11 billion. The majority (80%) of ecommerce revenue was generated from the company’s domestic operations in China, while the rest came from International retail and wholesale operations. Cloud computing segment posted revenues of RMB 1.76 billion (~$254 million) for the quarter, up 115% YoY from RMB 819 million. Alibaba mentioned that the total gross merchandise value (GMV) of transactions made via its payment platform Alipay stood at $17.4 billion, of which 82% was generated from mobile transactions. The company claims to process a…
