Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is partnering with U.S-based mobile search engine company Quixey, Inc. to improve mobile app search results for its YunOS operating system in China.

YunOS is Alibaba's smartphone operating system unveiled in 2011. The operating system was previously called AMOS back in 2013.

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Quixey, a company that runs a mobile search engine app of the same name, announced the plan on Friday and said it intends to help Alibaba's YunOS users search apps and locate contents within them.

Tomer Kagan, CEO of Quixey said the new technology aims to help YunOS users find mobile apps based on what they want to do, instead of the typical keyword searches.

Unlike web search engine technology, the California-based company's technology is aimed at smartphone users.

"There are millions of apps, with millions of functionalities and billions of pieces of content and people have no idea what's out there," said Kagan.

"I should be able to search all my apps from the same place every time. That's what we're bringing to YunOS."

The Chinese tech giant invested US$50 million into Quixey last year to help the latter develop its search technology.

With the partnership, Quixey also hopes to expand its market reach into China without restricting itself to Alibaba.

"We want to become a common mobile search platform in China for several different partners," said Guru Gowrappan, Quixey's chief operating officer.

TagsAlibaba Group Holding Limited, Quixey Inc, Search engine, Mobile Apps, YunOS, AMOS, california, Tomer Kagan, Guru Gowrappan