The number of users of Alibaba's online wealth management service Yu'ebao rose 42 percent from a year earlier to 260 million by the end of 2015, with a total value of 620.7 billion yuan.[Photo/IC]

Qiu Lingyun, associate professor of management information systems at Guanghua School of Management, believes many misunderstand the logic of Alibaba's recent strategy.

"By these acquisitions they are actually investing in their core business. Their core competency is actually running a huge platform, which has now accumulated a huge amount of consumer data," he says.

"They need to find all kinds of ways to monetize this consumer intelligence. Many of its acquisitions are consumer orientated like online video, online gaming or what have you. So long as they are doing this, you can still say they are investing in their core business."

Wang Qing, professor of marketing and innovation at Warwick Business School in the UK, insists Alibaba is just taking advantage derived from freer regulation in China than in the US and Europe.

"They see what Alibaba is doing as risk and not an opportunity. What they often fail to appreciate is that antitrust regulation is not as well established in China as it is in the United States and Europe," she says.