Alibaba and China Telecom signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement in Beijing that includes work on Internet of Things and payment services.
Under the agreement, the two parties will begin working together in various areas such as e-commerce, online security, marketing services, cloud computing, online payments, IoT, and corporate procurement services. Financial terms and expectations of returns of the deal were not released by either party.
The two parties will work together to enhance the corresponding cooperation between China Telecom's five ecospheres, including smart access, smart home, new ICT applications, Internet finance, and Internet of Things, and Alibaba's five "new" areas, including new retailing, new manufacturing, new finance, new technology, and new energy. In addition, they will further discuss and explore future in-depth deals.
China Telecom and Alibaba Group have already been working on a prior partnership and the two parties have implemented multi-level cooperation in data center services and mobile payments.
So far, Alibaba has signed cooperation agreements with all three major Chinese telecom operators. In November 2016, Alibaba inked a strategic cooperation framework agreement with China Unicom in Hangzhou; and in December 2016, the e-commerce group signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with China Mobile in Beijing.