Services

What Analysts Are Saying After Alibaba Reported Earnings

Chris Lange

Published: August 12, 2016 11:20 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 4:39 am

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) reported its fiscal first-quarter financial results before the markets opened on Thursday. Ultimately, this report showed continued growth for the company, and coupled with the past six months of performance, Alibaba is up over 50%. As a result, analysts rushed to make calls on the stock following the report.

24/7 Wall St. has included some of the key highlights from the earnings report, as well as what analysts are saying afterward.

The company said that it had $0.74 in earnings per share (EPS) on $4.84 billion in revenue for the quarter. Consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters had called for $0.63 in EPS on revenue of $4.54 billion. According to Alibaba, the same period of last year had EPS of $0.56 and $3.04 billion in revenue.

Mobile monthly active users (MAUs) in June reached 427 million, an increase of 17 million over March 2016, while annual active buyers on Chinese retail marketplaces increased to 434 million, a net addition of 11 million annual active buyers from the prior quarter.

Gross merchandise value (GMV) transacted on Chinese retail marketplaces was $126 billion, an increase of $25 billion, or 24%, from last year, with mobile GMV accounting for 75% of total GMV.

The cloud computing business continued its rapid expansion, with revenue in this quarter increasing 156% from last year to $187 million.

After earnings were released, analysts poured into this Chinese giant:

• RBC Capital Markets has an Outperform rating and raised its price target to $110 from $105.
• SunTrust has a Buy rating.
• JPMorgan has an Overweight rating.
• Jefferies has a Buy rating with a $103 price target.
• Deutsche Bank has a Buy rating with a $115 price target.
• Credit Suisse has an Outperform rating with a with a $122 price target.
• Brean Capital has a Buy rating and raised its price target to $115.
• Raymond James has a Strong Buy rating with a $124 price target.
• Goldman Sachs has a Buy rating with a $120 price target.
• Macquarie has an Outperform rating with a $110 price target.
• Evercore ISI has a $110 price target.

Shares of Alibaba were trading up over 3% to $94.87 on Friday, with a consensus analyst price target of $99.29 and a 52-week trading range of $57.20 to $95.00.