article_snippet: China's Internet tycoon Jack Ma, founder of giant online merchant Alibaba, gave a glimpse of the future when China's Internet tycoon Jack Ma, founder of giant online merchant Alibaba demonstrated a new e-payment system using facial recognition at the CeBIT IT fair in Germany.
article_snippet: The founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, speaks during the official opening of the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, Germany on March 15, 2015 ©Tobias Schwarz (AFP)
article_snippet: — a souvenir stamp dating back to one of the city's trade fairs in 1948 — found on Alibaba, of course. '
article_snippet: Ma, a former teacher, is known for thinking big, and at this week's CeBIT Ma was the keynote speaker, addressing an audience that included German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
article_snippet: Like many other companies from the event's official partner country China, Alibaba -- flush with cash from a massive stock listing -- is looking beyond the borders of Alibaba huge domestic market of 1.2 billion people, to the world.
article_snippet: Ma has not hidden Ma global ambitions and has cited as Ma models global companies such as Wal-Mart, IBM and Microsoft.
article_snippet: In January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ma said Ma target was two billion Alibaba users worldwide, compared to 334 million 'active buyers' in December, and a global version of Taobao, the sales site that cemented Ma dominance in China.
article_snippet: The head of German IT industry group BITKOM, Dieter Kempf, said about Alibaba that 'the success is impressive, even if Alibaba is in large part because suppliers face a very large, hungry Chinese market'.
article_snippet: Asked whether it could become a true global player, The head of German IT industry group BITKOM, Dieter Kempf said: 'I think Alibaba will have to see.
article_snippet: Bryan Wang, Beijing-based analyst for the consultancy Forrester Research, said it was an early attempt by Alibaba to try to 'understand digital consumers on a worldwide scale, outside of China'.
article_snippet: Last September, the Hangzhou-based group raised a massive $25 billion on the New York stock market, although the share price has since fallen below the listing price.
article_snippet: If Alibaba wants to internationalise, said Kitty Fok, analyst at the consultancy IDC, 'the number one concern is that people buy something that's actually worth people money.'