One of the top buzzwords in China's Internet the past 18 months has been "Internet Plus", which is Premier Li Keqiang's focus on merging e-commerce, online banking, and industrial networks.
This government initiative now is being adopted by companies, with China Mobile and Alibaba being the latest to forge unions to make Internet Plus work. China Mobile and Alibaba recently signed their Internet Plus strategic cooperation framework agreement in Beijing.
China Mobile's president Li Yue and Alibaba Group's chief executive officer Zhang Yong signed the strategic cooperation framework agreement on behalf of the two parties. China Mobile's Chairman Shang Bing; Vice President Sha Yuejia; Alibaba Group's Chairman Jack Ma,; Ant Financial Group's CEO Jing Xiandong; Alibaba Group's CTO Zhang Jianfeng; Alibaba's Senior VP and Aliyun's President Hu Xiaoming; and Rookie Network's CEO Tong Wenhong attended the signing ceremony.
With the deal, whose financial terms have not been forthcoming, the two parties aim to implement the Internet Plus strategy to enhance national strength via a unified network and enforce the "Internet Plus" action plan. They will follow the industrial development trends and work together in four major sectors, including emerging technology fields, basic communications service, information infrastructure, and marketing cooperation.
Prior to this, China Mobile and Alibaba Group already realized various levels of cooperation in sectors like data center services, information infrastructure, e-commerce services, and mobile payment solutions, which created a good business value for both parties.
In addition, they are jointly exploring emerging areas such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, and smart hardware.