Alibaba is an e-commerce/e-auction company of China, specializing in global trading. Alibaba group was founded in 1999 by Ma Yun (Jack Ma), and operates five e-commerce sub-companies which operate different aspects of trading:

Alibaba.com: English language global trade website serving small and medium-sized enterprises.
Taobao.com: Online auctions web site for customers.
Alipay: Online payments web site, processing mainly payments within China.
Alisoft: Provider of web services to the Chinese Small and Medium-sized Enterprise marketplace.
Alimama: Online advertising exchange, which allows web publishers and advertisers to trade online advertising inventory.

Alibaba.com.cn and alibaba.com are the world's largest online B2B marketplace.In 2008, alibaba.com attracted at least 23 million visitors of which 65 percent hail from China.

The English-language web site alibaba.com specializes in business-to-business trades, especially for international buyers trying to contact Chinese sellers. The Chinese-language web site china.alibaba.com focuses on business-to-business trades within China, while www.taobao.com is a consumer-to-consumer trade site for Chinese customers. The Japanese language website "Japan.alibaba.com" is for Japanese customers.