Cloud computing is transforming the way companies across the world do business. But in China, it is playing an even more transformative role: the country’s biggest consumer-oriented companies are increasingly tapping the corporate sector too.
Alibaba and Tencent have muscled their way into the world’s top 10 most valuable companies on the back of shoppers: Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace counts 580m users while Tencent’s WeChat messaging and social app has almost 500m users, according to market research firm eMarketer.
Now the duo are leading the charge into data storage and software services on the cloud, where they are courting business and government clients.