Alibaba Cloud's 💲1 billion investment in “global partner #ecosystem upgrade"

How important are partners really for the #growth of a tech business?

Well, Alibaba Cloud just announced a 💲1 billion investment in “global partner #ecosystem upgrade.” ~ 12% of their annual revenue.

Alibaba Cloud is the third largest infrastructure-as-a-service provider globally with ~10% market share.

It is behind Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft, but it is larger than Google Cloud and, surprisingly , it’s growing faster 📈 than AWS.

2021 revenue and growth:

Amazon $35,4Bn (+39%)

Microsoft $19,3Bn (+21%)

Alibaba $8,7Bn (+9.5%)

Google $6,4Bn (+7.1%)

💡 Going global means learning to go local

Alibaba Cloud is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group and it offers similar services to the other competitors. Obviously it has an edge in the Chinese market, but it is also becoming the leading regional provider in Indonesia, Malaysia, and other emerging cloud markets, given its local market understanding and ability to serve as a bridge to digital commerce.

To accelerate partners' growth, Alibaba Cloud launched a "Regional Accelerator" program to provide partners operating in different markets with a localized business collaboration model.

“Regional cloud ecosystems are becoming increasingly important amidst growing geopolitical fragmentation and emerging regulatory and compliance requirements, presenting an opportunity for providers with a strong regional presence.”

🤝Alibaba Cloud currently has around 11,000 partners worldwide, including Salesforce, VMware, Fortinet, IBM, etc.

[AWS has 100K+ partners from 150+ countries]

Their partners ecosystem include:

Resellers

Technology partners (ISV, SaaS and SI)

Service and consulting partners.

The $1bn investments will be over the 3Y and will include financial and non-financial incentives - funding, rebates and go-to-market initiatives.

[Sources: 1 & 2]