What to Watch When Alibaba Reports Thursday

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By Chris Lange Updated Published
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What to Watch When Alibaba Reports Thursday

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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA | BABA Price Prediction) is set to report its fiscal first-quarter earnings results before the markets open on Thursday. The consensus estimates are calling for $1.46 in earnings per share (EPS) and $15.82 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $1.16 on $11.66 billion in revenue.

During the fiscal fourth quarter, mobile monthly active users on the China retail marketplaces reached 721 million, an increase of 22 million year over year.

Alibaba’s core commerce segment delivered robust revenue growth of 51% in the fourth quarter. The strong performance of the segment was driven primarily by effective user acquisition, growth of China retail marketplaces and the expansion of the total addressable market.

At that time, Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba, commented:

More and more, Alibaba is becoming synonymous with everyday consumption in China, growing our base to 654 million annual active consumers and extending our penetration in less-developed cities. Our cloud and data technology and tremendous traction in New Retail have enabled us to continuously transform the way businesses operate in China and other emerging markets, which will contribute to our long-term growth.

[nativounit]

Excluding Wednesday’s move, Alibaba had outperformed the broad markets, with the stock up about 20% year to date. In the past 52 weeks, the stock was actually down 9%.

A few analysts weighed in on Alibaba ahead of the report:

  • Jefferies has a Buy rating with a $216 price target.
  • Morgan Stanley has a Buy rating with a $207 target.
  • Macquarie has a Buy rating and a $226 price target.
  • UBS has a Buy rating with a $210 target price.
  • Loop Capital has a Buy rating and a $250 price target.

Shares of Alibaba traded down about 2% to $160.40 on Wednesday, in a 52-week range of $129.77 to $195.72. The consensus price target is $217.76.

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Photo of Chris Lange
About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.

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