Alibaba's five most promising businesses

3. Digital marketing: Alimama

A key strategy for Alimama, the company's digital marketing platform, is to go "beyond Taobao" and expand its customer base that is not limited to Taobao vendors, said Zhang.

The company is also working to provide businesses of all sectors with diversified digital marketing solutions, where they could interact with their consumers, other than push advertisements in a single direction, said Zhang.

The Internet giant announced earlier this year that it would acquire a controlling stake in Shanghai-based digital marketing firm AdChina to boost the development of the big data enabled marketing in the country.

Alibaba kicks off a "Double 12" sales campaign on Dec 4, 2014. Small vendors on Taobao, one of the company's e-commerce platforms, are expected to play a leading role in the sales carnival. [Photo/IC]