Alibaba’s global perspective sends share price soaring

Alibaba’s (BABA) ongoing experimentation with new ways to lure shoppers into spending their money, diversification and expansion into new territories has earned widespread approval in the markets, pushing its share price to record highs of $192.12 ahead of their quarterly earnings report (November 2).


The Chinese e-commerce giant’s shares have more than doubled in value this year (see chart) with much of Alibaba’s growth being fueled by the internet retailing boom in China. The move into cloud computing is currently loss-making, but with the number of users almost doubling to 1 million in a year and expansion into Malaysia and India it is expected to turn that around. Also, Alibaba’s diversification into groceries, digital entertainment and financial services are showing potential for future growth.

Alibaba’s goal is to reach 2 billion customers around the world within 20 years. In some cases, it has begun with digital payments, as in India. In others it has invested in e-commerce sites, as with Lazada, in South-East Asia. But it intends to build a broad range of services within each market, including payments, e-commerce and travel services, and then link local platforms with Alibaba’s in China.


Alibaba’s recent success has, in part, been helped by Beijing’s severe restrictions on foreign internet companies which has allowed them to benefit from the boom in e-commerce while only contending with domestic competition.


However, at the core of Alibaba’s success has been innovation. Sales events like its ‘11.11 Global Shopping Festival’ have been phenomenally successful and provide a platform upon which Alibaba experiment with new forms of retail and customer engagement which rely extensively on interactivity, technology and consumer analytics.


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