Alibaba is looking to dominate the online newspaper arena with its aggressive strategy. The company recently acquired South China Morning Post along with the Hong Kong editions of Cosmopolitan, Elle and Esquire.Now, in a potentially trend setting move, the e-commerce giant has announced that it is dropping the paywall on the mobile and online editions of South China Morning Post newspaper.

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The company hopes to generate higher traffic by removing the paywall barrier in hopes that this will eventually lead to higher ad revenue. Alibaba also plans to augment its footprints in the entertainment business and attract more people to its e-commerce platforms.

Experts say the move is not only commercial in its implication, but also has political undertones. Alibaba is also trying to counter market suspicions that its newspaper will be heavily influenced by big wigs in Beijing. Incidentally, the newspaper went offline on March 3, right before the inauguration of annual legislative session in China.

Alibaba has made no bones about the fact that it intends to use the newspaper to dispell myths and rumors about China. It aims to bring local news to global readership, in order to let them have glimpse of the real China. Many Chinese experts agree that biased and negative coverage of the country has impacted Alibaba's share prices in an undesirable way.

Alibaba is not the only e-commerce company to make a foray into the newspaper industry. Its US competitor Amazon splashed out $250 million to buy the Washington Post in 2013. However, unlike Amazon, Alibaba is expected to be more vocal and actively involved in its latest acquisition.

Apart from the removal of the paywall, SCMP.com also launched an upgraded mobile version of its website featuring deep link support and faster download speed.

TagsSouth China Morning Post, Alibaba, Amazon, The Washington Post