Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) are down more than 20% in 2015, and that decline could carry over into next week when the first lockup period on insider shares expires. On March 19, a total of approximately 429 million ordinary shares and about 8 million restricted share units and share options will become available.

In a press release Wednesday, the company also said that approximately 100 million of the ordinary shares exiting the lockup period “remain subject to Alibaba Group’s employee trading restrictions until after the announcement in May of [the company’s] earnings results for the quarter and fiscal year ending March 31, 2015.” The fact remains that 329 million shares is a lot of dilution on a float of 1.12 billion shares.

However, next week’s dilution of Alibaba stock is nothing compared to what is coming. Immediately following the company’s initial public offering (IPO) last September, nearly 82% — 2.02 billion — of approximately 2.49 billion ordinary shares issued and outstanding were subject to lockup agreements.

According to Alibaba’s last F-1/A filing before the IPO, 8.11 million shares exited the first lockup period 91 days after the IPO and 429.05 million will exit 181 days (next week) after the IPO. That leaves 1.58 billion ordinary shares exiting the final lockup period in September of this year. In other words, more than 63% of the company’s outstanding stock remains locked up until September.

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Short sellers increased their positions in the stock by about 3.5 million shares in the two-week short interest reporting period that ended on February 27. The total number of shares now short runs to nearly 57 million, about double the total short interest in mid-October. Short interest jumped from around 42 million on January 30 to more than 53 million in the first two weeks of February, likely in anticipation of the March 18 lockup expiration date.

Alibaba’s stock broke through a floor of $84 a share two weeks ago, and it has managed to remain (barely) above $80 since. Whether it can remain above that floor remains to be seen. Somehow, though, with more than half the outstanding shares still to begin trading, that floor does not look all that strong.

Shares traded down 2% shortly before noon on Wednesday at $81.32, in a post-IPO range of $80.03 to $120.00.

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