Alibaba Must Deploy Cash to Challenge Android: Real M&A

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. wants its mobile operating system to run millions of smartphones in China. The fastest solution: spend some of its cash hoard on a handset maker.

Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai, laying out plans for the next decade, said in an interview last month that Alibaba’s homegrown system, YunOS, can knit services together for the company as Asia’s largest e-commerce giant steps beyond clothes and gadgets to entertainment and health care. With a market value of $266 billion, Alibaba has struggled to push YunOS in China, where more than nine out of 10 mobile devices use Google Inc.’s Android.