Chinese entrepreneur and philanthropist Jack Ma has been recently reported by Bloomberg Billionaires Index to be Asia's richest man. Ma, who is the founder and executive chairman of China's Alibaba Group, has surpassed Hong Kong property tycoon Li Ka-shing in terms of net worth. Li has been holding the top spot since April 2012.

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Ma has amassed a total of $28.6 billion in fortune. Li, on the other hand, has a net worth of $28.3 billion. Ma's cumulative earnings this year is reportedly around $25 billion. His company is enjoying a 54 percent increase in shares right after it was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange last September. Majority of Ma's fortune comes from his share in Alibaba, a company with current market value of $16.3 billion. Ma currently owns 6.3 percent of Alibaba.

As of Nov. 2014, Ma is the richest man in China and the 19th richest man in the world according to the latest reports from Bloomberg. Ma who made his fortune in e-commerce is also the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur to grace on the cover of the prestigious Forbes magazine. His company, Alibaba, is widely held as one of the most successful and valuable technological company in the world, sharing the same luminary status with tech giants Apple, Google and Microsoft.  To put it in numbers, Alibaba currently has a total market capital of $259 billion, bigger than Lenovo Inc. and CISCO Systems put together.

The 50-year-old billionaire who is a former English teacher started his career when he founded China Yellowpages, considered as China's first Internet-based company. He founded Alibaba in 1999 and is currently serving different companies in more than 240 countries and territories. He currently heads Alibaba Group, a holding company with subsidiaries like Alibaba.com, AliExpress.com, 1688.com, Alipay, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall, eTao, Juhuasuan and Alibaba Cloud Computing.

TagsJack Ma, billionaire, Li Ka-shing, Alibaba Group, Alibaba.com