Alibaba's nine main businesses

A look at Alibaba's nine main businesses explains why Yahoo investors are elated about the company.

Online shopping: Taobao Marketplace, Alibaba's crown jewel is a massive online shopping site with 760 million product listings. According to ranking site Alexa, it's the 13th most popular site on the Internet.

Luxury goods: Tmall is Alibaba's fancier brand-name marketplace, which features products from 70,000 global brands including Nike (NKE, Fortune 500), Gap (GPS, Fortune 500) and Adidas.

Online payments: Alipay, Alibaba's version of PayPal is the most widely used third-party online payment platform in China.

Daily deals: Juhuasuan is Alibaba's version of Groupon (GRPN): It offers deals on both goods and local activities.

Search engine for shopping: ETao is a search engine dedicated solely to online shopping. Users can search for products, discounts coupons, hotel stays, rebates and more.

Small business suppliers: Alibaba.com, launched in 1999, is a trading site that connects small businesses with suppliers.

E-commerce for small businesses: 1688.com focuses on wholesaling and product sourcing for small businesses -- particularly for sellers on the Taobao platforms.

Wholesale: AliExpress, launched in 2010, is a low-cost wholesale marketplace.

Cloud computing: The four-year-old Aliyun.com sells cloud computing and data management services.

Alibaba is expected to go public in the near future. When that happens, Yahoo investors hope they are handsomely rewarded.