Apple’s earnings announcement last week contained a glaring anomaly for a western technology company. The company disclosed that 22 per cent of its history-making $74.6bn in quarterly sales came from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. But business leaders around the world should pay more attention to the interview that Jack Ma, Alibaba’s executive chairman, gave to Charlie Rose at Davos.
Several things were apparent during Mr Ma’s session: the scale of his ambition, the extent of Alibaba’s existing reach and, more interestingly, the change in the balance of power within the global technology business.
These days many non-US tech groups, particularly those born and raised in China, are better positioned for the next 25 years than their American counterparts. The intergalactic technology battle has been joined.