Alibaba cuts 7% workforce in cloud unit in pursuit of IPO
Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba’s cloud computing subsidiary, unveiled its ChatGPT Tongyi Qianwen-style product during the 2023 Alibaba Cloud Summit on Tuesday morning.
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alibaba is cutting 7% of its workforce in its cloud computing division as it prepares to go public.
The move, confirmed to CNBC by a person familiar with the matter who wants to remain anonymous as they cannot speak publicly, will see the Chinese e-commerce giant offer severance packages to those affected. enjoy. Alibaba has already started notifying employees of the layoffs and is also helping them move to different positions internally if they wish, the same source added.
This comes after it announced plans for March divided the company into six business units, each with its own chief executive officer and board of directors.
Last week, the company announced plans for a Full spin-off of its cloud unit and said it intends for the division to become an independent publicly listed company. Alibaba aims to complete the spin-off within the next 12 months.
Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang has long-standing cloud computing is a key part of the e-commerce giant’s future, but it currently accounts for only 9% of the group’s total revenue. And revenue has slowed significantly over the past few quarters. In fact, revenue fell 2% year-on-year in the first quarter of the year.
Zhang said on the company’s earnings call last week that this was “partially because we’ve been proactively adjusting our revenue structure and focusing on high-quality growth, but it’s also a result of the external changes in the market environment and customer composition.”
TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has begun moving its international operations out of Alibaba’s cloud, which continues to affect the company’s cloud business.
However, Alibaba has made some headway with its cloud business over the past few years. It is number one company by market share in China and number two in Asia-Pacific, just behind Amazon, according to the Synergy Research Group. However, at the global level, it still follows the giant Amazon, Microsoft And Google.