Investing.com – Shares Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) closed more than 13% higher on Thursday, as investors cheered a new forecast from management on sales growth for the year which topped analysts’ expectations.
Shares of the e-commerce giant soared more than 10% in the early morning U.S. session, after the Alibaba Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu said at the firm’s investor conference on Thursday that revenue growth would accelerate in the region of 45% to 49% for this year.
Maggie Wu's outlook on sales growth topped analysts’ expectations by more than 10%.
The Hangzhou-based company attributed the loftier outlook on revenue to rising expectations that its e-commerce unit would continue to strengthen, as the company remains committed to expanding the number of consumers on its platforms, improving its customer experience, and growing its market share in the business-to-consumer market.
Alibaba has seen its stock surge more than 40% this year, as more Chinese consumers adapt to e-commerce.
Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang said Alibaba's most important asset was its data collection, which would allow them to provide better services for key stakeholders such as customers, advertisers and businesses.
"If we use one sentence to describe Alibaba," he said. "Alibaba is an economy, driven by big data."