Analysts Recently raised their price target on Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) from $130 to $155 that send the net worth of its founder Jack Ma up to $31.1 billion making Ma China’s wealthiest man overtaking Chinese property magnate Wang Jianlin from the top spot.
Upcoming Earnings Report
For its upcoming earnings report which will be released this Thursday, analysts are expecting the Chinese e-commerce company to deliver a revenue of $5.2 billion or around 35 billion yuan, 48% higher than the same quarter last year in the local currency. Consensus analysts adjusted their expected earnings by 66 cents in yuan.
Alibaba which will be delivering their earnings report for the fiscal fourth quarter prior to Thursday’s market open has risen by around 57% this year on the stock market.
During the previous quarter, Alibaba delivered a revenue growth of 54% to around $7.7 billion and reported a growth in their retail sales by 24% year-over-year this April in China alone but was considerably lower from the 33% growth year-over-year in March.
In the past year, the company which ventured into the cloud business has seen an increase of 115% in their revenue from cloud computing to $254 million. However, Alibaba’s e-commerce remains to be the company’s top revenue driver.
As the growth rate is expected to rise well above Wall Street expectations, shares of the company are expected to rise by around 20-40% on top of the recent price target upgrade Alibaba’s stock has been given.
Global Expansion Plans
While investors will be primarily focusing on a significant revenue growth, user growth, retail sales, and margin increases in the upcoming earnings report, Alibaba is also expected to announce new plans and strategies on the company’s global expansion.
Alibaba has recently been expanding its efforts to close deals between other countries where the company’s online platforms would be formalized. Last month, Alibaba was able to sign a memorandum of understanding with Argentina that would allow Argentina to officially use Alibaba’s channels for their top products which are wine and fresh food.
Just this Wednesday, another memorandum of understanding was signed with the tech giant, this time with Pakistan. The deal would promote the export of the country’s small and medium enterprise-produced products through Alibaba’s e-commerce platform globally.
Aside from this, Alibaba together with Ant Financial and the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan would promote financial services growth in Pakistan in mobile and online payment services areas. Parties involved have also reached an agreement to adopt Alibaba’s cloud computing services that will support the online and mobile e-commerce businesses of the enterprises in the country.