Want to stay on top of news and analysis about one of the world’s fastest-moving companies? Here are the people and resources to know.
Any tracking of Alibaba begins with what the company is saying about itself, so the best place to start is with its public-relations and media arm, Alizilla.
For actual transcripts of earnings conference calls, which often have interesting bits of insight about company direction, check out Nasdaq‘s site.
Seeking Alpha has a dedicated section on Alibaba as well as occasional podcasts, like this one and this one, that offer valuable insights into the company.
Other great sources are mainly written in Chinese, but for quality on-the-ground coverage in English, try Technode, Techcrunch, e27, and Tech In Asia—the latter has more Southeast Asia coverage.
Of course, there is also the Alibaba-owned South China Morning Post, which often gets scoops on the company.
For the pod people
There are a ton of tech podcasts out there, but a few favorites in Asia are those run by Technode, including China Tech Investor hosted by Elliot Zaagman and James Hull, and China Tech Talk, hosted by Editor-in-Chief John Artman and Matt Brennan, who closely follows Alibaba’s rival Tencent.
Asia Tech Podcast is also quite good and has a wider focus that reaches into Southeast Asia, as does e27.
The Investors Podcast has an abridged reading of Duncan Clark’s Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built, probably the top book in English on the company. Or you could read the book yourself.
Reports to read
KPMG—which partners with Alibaba in a variety of areas—released a survey last June that found Alibaba was the world’s most disruptive company.
Deloitte, also a partner with Alibaba in nearly the same ways as KPMG, has a nice overview of the future of retail here.
Ernst and Young has several interesting reports on Alibaba’s intersection with fintech and payments.
The Harvard Business Review has a nice overview of how Alibaba is leading tech innovation in China.
PwC, which audits Alibaba in Hong Kong, also recently had a report out about new retail strategies.
Alibaba’s own reports can often give a good overview, as this one on the company’s ecosystem does.
For legal news briefs related to the company, Lexology is an important resource to browse.
Journalists and analysts to follow
Among the big papers, Louise Lucas covers China’s tech scene for The Financial Times out of Hong Kong, while Paul Mozur covers technology for the New York Times from Shanghai.
John Russell of Techcrunch is a good person to follow, along with others mentioned from Technode earlier.
Lulu Chen of Bloomberg News covers Alibaba and other tech companies out of Hong Kong, and Tim Culpan, Bloomberg Opinion tech columnist for Asia, is always insightful.
Arjun Kharpal, technology correspondent for CNBC, has just opened a bureau for the organization in Guangzhou, and in addition a recent interview with Daniel Zhang, he expects to devote a good amount of coverage to Alibaba.
Josh Horowitz, formerly with Quartz, is now with Reuters in Shanghai and still covering tech.
Jeffrey Towsen, a professor at Peking University, consistently blogs and tweets about Alibaba and other tech issues.