Insight - Alibaba shows how tough it is to kick a habit

Loss-making: The mascot for Alibaba’s Taobao eCommerce platform at the company’s affiliated hotel in Hangzhou. The tech giant recorded its first-ever decline in quarterly revenue – one of the few major Chinese Internet corporations to do so. — Bloomberg

SLOWING growth and a rise in corporate spending have spurred global technology companies to boost revenue from non-consumer offerings. Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) are among those who’ve built solid business models around the rise in cloud services.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has failed to follow the trend, and looks unlikely to do so anytime soon.