(Yicai Global) April 26 -- Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding, will slash the prices of its core products by between 15 percent and 50 percent starting May 7 to entice more users.

The reductions are the biggest ever by China's largest provider of cloud computing services, The Paper reported, citing an announcement Hangzhou-based Alibaba Cloud made at a partner conference today.

Cloud storage products will be as much as 50 percent cheaper, while the cost of the web application firewall will fall by up to 30 percent, and that of database products by a maximum of 40 percent, Alibaba Cloud said.

Alibaba Cloud is committed to "making computing power more accessible," said Daniel Zhang, chairman and chief executive of Alibaba, adding that the firm aims to lower the cost of using the cloud sustainably and expand the cloud market space.

More than 200,000 companies have applied to test Alibaba Cloud's Tongyi Qianwen since the artificial intelligence large language model launched two weeks ago, noted Zhang, who is also CEO of Alibaba Cloud.

The company will join hands with seven firms that provide digitalization services to make the oil and gas, electricity, transportation, finance, hotel and tourism, enterprise services, and communication sectors smarter, he said.

Alibaba Cloud's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization were CNY1.3 billion (USD187.9 million) in the 12 months ended Dec. 31, equal to an adjusted EBITA profit margin of 3 percent, its parent company’s latest earnings report showed. Revenue jumped 7 percent to CNY77.6 billion (USD11.2 billion).

Editor: Martin Kadiev