Alibaba takes aim at Google’s android

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s investment into China's social media giant will likely be instrumental in one of its key ambitions: challenging the dominance of Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android operating system in China's fast-growing smartphone market. 

投资中国社交媒体巨头的决定可能有助于阿里巴巴集团实现其一个重要目标：在中国快速增长的智能手机市场上，对谷歌安卓操作系统的主导地位发起挑战。 

Known primarily for its e-commerce heft in China, Alibaba is redesigning its business for the mobile Internet era by stepping up investment in its own smartphone operating system. Its $586 million investment in Sina Corp.'s (SINA) Twitter-like Weibo microblog business on Monday followed an earlier move this month to promote its mobile platform. 

阿里巴巴集团在中国主要以其电商业务而闻名。通过加大对它自己的智能手机操作系统的投资力度，该公司正在为适应移动互联网时代的到来重新调整业务。阿里巴巴集团周一向新浪公司与推特类似的微博业务投资了5.86亿美元，此前，阿里巴巴集团上个月对其自己的手机操作平台进行了宣传推广。 

'If you are a big Internet company and you are ambitious enough in the mobile space, you have to do more than apps,' Alibaba Chief Strategy Officer Zeng Ming said in a recent interview. 'Otherwise, you are just a small species in an ecosystem controlled by others.'

阿里巴巴集团的首席战略长曾鸣最近接受采访时说，如果你是一家大型互联网公司，在移动领域有足够的抱负，你就不能仅限于做应用程序；否则的话，你只是一个由他人控制的生态系统中的一个小物种。 

A tighter grip over Sina Weibo, which has 46.2 million daily active users, could enable Alibaba, whose Taobao shopping site has more than 500 million registered users, to have access to vast swaths of data. And having control over the operating system is the best way to gain access to all the mobile-based data, Mr. Zeng said. 

新浪微博拥有4,620万每日活跃用户。加强对新浪微博的控制能够使阿里巴巴获得大量数据。阿里巴巴集团旗下的淘宝购物网站拥有超过5亿注册用户。曾鸣说，对手机操作系统进行控制是获得所有与手机有关的数据的最佳方式。

'Data on mobile phones are so valuable,' he said. 'In one way or the other, you can make some money out of it,' even though Alibaba is still working on specific ways to do so, he said.  

他说，手机上的数据非常有价值。你可以通过某种方式利用这些数据赚钱，不过阿里巴巴目前仍在寻找具体的方式。

While Alibaba makes money through advertisement and service fees, how to monetize data accumulated through its online services–be it on PCs or mobile–has been a challenge.

尽管阿里巴巴集团可以通过收取广告费和服务费盈利，但如何利用通过网络服务获取的数据(包括个人电脑和手机中的数据)来赚钱，一直是阿里巴巴集团面临的一个挑战。

The fledgling Alibaba Mobile OS, or AMOS, faces an uphill battle against Android, which, according to research firm IDC, powered more than 80% of all smartphones shipped in China last year. Apple's iOS held around 10%. Alibaba is aiming for a 10% share, even though its current market share is less than 1%, Mr. Zeng said. 

初出茅庐的阿里巴巴集团的手机操作系统面临着与安卓操作系统的艰难竞争，根据研究公司IDC的数据，中国去年销售的智能手机中，有超过80%搭载的是安卓系统。中国只有约10%的手机使用苹果的iOS操作系统。曾鸣说，阿里巴巴的目标是让自己的手机操作系统占据10%的市场份额，但它目前的市场份额还不到1%。