Jack Ma, co-founder and chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Limited

Jack Ma, co-founder and chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Limited, and CEO of Apple Inc. Tim Cook are set to meet later this week to discuss a potential partnership. Discussions of the potential meeting arose at the WSJDLive conference held on Monday. Ma made some comments regarding a partnership between Alipay and Apple Pay during an interview at the conference “I’m very interested in that. I hope we can do something together.” He also spoke highly of Cook, who was sitting in the audience.

Later in the evening, Cook reciprocated in an interview of his own, “I have the utmost respect for Jack. We love to partner with people who are wicked smart, have flexible teams, who are product based and push us. I think Jack has a company that’s exactly like that. If we can find some areas of common space, I’d love it.” The Apple CEO then went on to say the two would meet later this week to talk about a potential partnership.

Any partnership would likely focus on the integration of Apple Pay and Alipay across Taobao, Tmall and Alibaba; however, Cook made no mention of whether the potential partnership would focus on payments.

Alipay is China’s largest payments service with 300 million active users. Apple Pay, launched earlier this month, acquired 1 million activations in the first 72 hours.

In addition to meeting with Cook, Ma also plans to visit various Hollywood studios. “I want to come here looking for partners,” he commented regarding his visit to the U.S. He also stated his belief that China will ultimately be the world’s largest movie market.

Even with more e-commerce transactions than eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. combined, Alibaba doesn’t have much of a presence among U.S. customers. Ma’s says his focus is serving his Chinese clientele; however, that may well change in the future.

Alibaba has invested in the U.S. before when they acquired niche online retailer 11Main. They also announced a deal with Lions Gate Entertainment in July.

Alibaba shares have risen 44% since their IPO in September. With a market capitalization of $240 million, Alibaba is larger than eBay and Amazon combined.

Cook noted just last week, “In the future China will become Apple’s biggest revenue contributor. It’s just a matter of time”.

photo credit: jdlasica via photopin cc