Alibaba picks up digital content stake

As wide as Alibaba's interests seem to be, Lin Wenbin, an analyst with IT consultancy Analysys International, said that its investments are focused on one thing: building a strong company in the Internet era.

"Many traditional services, such as finance, can be shifted online now. Alibaba is no longer an e-commerce company. It just did what it had to in order to stay strong in this rapidly changing tech world," Lin said.

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Alibaba and founder's purchases in 2014

Feb 10

Alibaba offered to buy the remaining shares of AutoNavi Holdings Ltd, a digital mapping company listed in the United States, after it acquired a 28 percent stake in the company for $294 million last May.

March 12

Alibaba agreed to pay HK$6.24 billion ($804 million) for a 60 percent stake in the Hong Kong-listed China Vision Media Group Ltd, which has a rich business portfolio, including print media, television and films, and mobile games.

March 20

Alibaba invested $215 million in the California-based mobile chat application Tango.

March 31

Alibaba agreed to invest as much as HK$5.37 billion ($692.2 million) in the Hong Kong-listed department store operator Intimae Retail (Group) Co Ltd. The overall capital injection will give Alibaba about a 9.9 percent equity stake in Intimae and the retailer's convertible bonds worth HK$3.71 billion. Once the bonds are converted into shares in three years, Alibaba will have no less than 25 percent of Intimae's equity.

April 3

Zhejiang Finance Credit Network Technology Co, which is 99 percent owned by Alibaba's founder Jack Ma, agreed to pay 3.3 billion yuan ($531.78 million) to take the controlling stake of financial software firm Hudson Technologies Inc.

April 8

An investment firm controlled by Alibaba founders agreed to purchase a 20 percent stake in digital-television company Wasu Media Holding Co for about 6.54 billion yuan ($1.06 billion).

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