Alibaba Cloud Bolsters Hong Kong Service Capabilities with Updated Eco Alliance and Expanded Delivery Hub

Accelerating digital transformation for customers in transportation, finance and retail.

Hong Kong, November 24, 2021 – Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, announced today at Alibaba Cloud Day in Hong Kong that it will increase resources in the market to better serve local customers and to assist them with their business expansion to other markets in the Greater Bay Area (GBA). New initiatives will include an upgrade of the Alibaba Cloud Hong Kong and Macao Eco Alliance to cover the entire GBA and enhanced services through the expansion of its Hong Kong delivery hub.

Major customers including , MTR Corporation Limited, China CITIC Bank International Limited, YF Life and TV Broadcasting Co., Ltd. also shared their digital transformation journey with Alibaba Cloud at today's event.

According to Gartner's Market Share: IT Services, Worldwide 2020 report published in April 2021, Alibaba had the largest IaaS market share in Hong Kong in 2020 .

“Given our experience of providing services in Hong Kong, Alibaba Cloud is familiar with the needs and operations of these local businesses. Combined with our solid foundation in the APAC market, we are well placed to support their digital transformation and long-term development in the APAC region especially in Southeast Asia and mainland China markets,” said Leo Liu, General Manager for Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Philippines, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “In the future, we will continue to add resources to the Hong Kong market and collaborate with global and local partners to provide customers with more innovative products and services. We will continue to support the digital talent development in Hong Kong as well.”

Deepening resources in Hong Kong

Alibaba Cloud announced a series of measures to enhance its services for Hong Kong customers, including an update of its ecosystem alliance from Hong Kong and Macau to cover the GBA in response to the growing number of local businesses looking to expand their operations in the region. The enhanced Greater Bay Area Eco Alliance will bring together the global expertise of Alibaba Cloud's partners in consulting, security, research and development, and service delivery. Alibaba Cloud's partners, which include Deloitte, GDS, Fortinet, Avaya, The Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), and Intel will collaborate to help Hong Kong businesses transform, innovate and grow regionally.

In addition, Alibaba Cloud will expand its Hong Kong delivery hub to improve delivery capabilities for faster response to customer needs. The Hong Kong delivery hub will focus on key industries such as finance and retail, further enhancing Alibaba Cloud's offering of industry solution offerings.

Supporting customers with innovative solutions

Alibaba Cloud also announced its collaborations with a number of Hong Kong customers across transportation, finance, fitness and media sectors for accelerated digital transformation.

Among the collaborations showcased today was the smart train-scheduling platform jointly developed by Alibaba Cloud and MTR, which uses cloud technology and artificial intelligence to adjust and optimize train deployment and maintenance. This intelligent platform assists depots in coping with changing train operation plans, as well as effectively enhancing the utilization rate of trains to meet the increasing service demands.

Lee Kim-hung, General Manager – Rolling Stock Workshop, MTR Corporation Limited said, "MTR is committed to staying ahead of the latest technologies and trends, as well as continuously improving service quality through innovation and collaboration with technological partners. The smart train platform effectively improves the depot's operation and management capabilities in order to meet the changing needs and expectations of our passengers."

China CITIC Bank International’s flagship mobile banking platform “inMotion” application leveraged Alibaba Cloud's financial-grade mPaaS (Mobile Platform as a Service) to integrate the functionalities of numerous apps to improve the user experience and make the application easier to operate and maintain. As of July 2021, the number of new customers opening accounts using inMotion had nearly quadrupled year-on-year, while the total number of users had increased by nearly 200%.

"Alibaba Cloud's mPaaS simplifies our application development process, and the application is lighter and smoother to use, which significantly improves the user experience," Ji Jinxiang, Chief Information Officer, China CITIC Bank International Limited stated, "We have been working with Alibaba Cloud, and we look forward to implementing other technological innovations to increase our operational efficiency and customer satisfaction through our multifaceted collaboration."

Hong Kong-based PURE Group has operations both in Hong Kong and mainland China. Its internal management system PURE 360 in mainland China has been hosted by Alibaba Cloud. The flexibility and scalability of the cloud, as well as the nodes of Alibaba Cloud covering both locations, has helped PURE Group to improve internal communications and management efficiency. PURE Group’s reservation system in mainland China is currently hosted by Alibaba Cloud, providing a smooth user experience in a safe and stable cloud environment.

Jeff Yeung, Chief Information Officer, PURE Group said, "PURE Group has an ambitious plan to expand into the mainland China market and recognizes the importance of collaboration between our teams in the two locations. The team at Alibaba Cloud Hong Kong that provides services to us is familiar with both markets and has received assistance from the mainland China team, maximizing the benefits of Alibaba Cloud’s cross-border operations and improving the effectiveness of our collaboration."

About Alibaba Cloud

Established in 2009, Alibaba Cloud (www.alibabacloud.com) is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It offers a complete suite of cloud services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, network virtualization services, large-scale computing, security, management and application services, big data analytics, a machine learning platform and IoT services. Alibaba Cloud is China’s leading provider of public cloud services by revenue in 2019, including PaaS and IaaS services, according to IDC. Alibaba Group is the world’s third leading and Asia Pacific’s leading IaaS provider by revenue in 2020 in U.S. dollars, according to Gartner’s April 2021 report.