Ma, 54, founded Alibaba in 1999 and ended his time as CEO in 2013, but has remained chairman and public face at the company. His net worth is $36.6 billion as of Sept 9 and he is ranked as the 20th richest person in the world, according to the Forbes Billionaires List.

Alibaba's current market value is about $417.6 billion, and its business has evolved by expanding beyond e-commerce to include digital payments, cloud computing and the production of big-budget movies.

The company posted a 61 percent jump in revenue to 80.9 billion yuan ($11.8 billion) in its first fiscal quarter this year, and kept a high growth at over 55 percent for 6 consecutive quarters, higher than analyst expectations. Alibaba has also stayed above global internet magnates Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google in growth, as well as its Chinese counterparts Baidu and Tencent.