Alibaba's stocks have grown by more than 7 percent in the last 30 days, as the Chinese e-commerce giant sets the stage for its anticipated first-quarter earnings report on November 1.
Over the last two years, Alibaba's (BABA) stock has been unstable. Nevertheless, as it ventures further into its post-Jack Ma age, Alibaba's growth prospects remain strong.
Alibaba owns Taobao and Tmall, China's two main e-commerce websites. The core business of the company accounts for approximately 90 percent of total company sales, which last quarter jumped 42 percent.
Last month, Alibaba's total effective retail customers hit 674 million, 20 million higher than Q4 2019 and 98 million higher than the year-ago quarter. However, mobile MAUs on China's retail marketplaces rose to 755 million by 121 million from the year-ago timeframe.
It is estimated that Alibaba holds around two-thirds of China's e-commerce market share. Yet, like its US counterpart Amazon, the company has expanded its logistics business to grow outside markets like Beijing and Shanghai.
The company based in Hangzhou, China, has stepped up its efforts to attract buyers outside major markets that have become heavily concentrated as it competes with competitors such as JD.com. However, Alibaba said last quarter that 70 million of its new customers reside in less developed areas.
Alibaba has expanded its cloud computing business together with e-commerce. Last quarter, the unit increased by 66 percent to account for 7 percent of total quarterly revenue.
Moreover, Joseph Tsai, Executive Vice President, recently discussed how Alibaba plans to take advantage of the 5G change. In addition to e-commerce and cloud computing, Alibaba operates a digital media and entertainment division that accounted for 5 percent of June's sales.
Alibaba has been volatile over the past two years, falling by about 1.5 percent. This falls behind the average 11 percent climb of the electronic commerce market - including everyone from eBay to Groupon.
Alibaba stock is up 76 percent over the past 36 months, given the loss over the past two years. And its stock closed Monday's regular trading at $178.68 a share, down from its 52-week peak by about 9 percent.
Meanwhile, forecasts of 12-month Zacks Consensus Earnings are priced on Alibaba shares at 26.2X. It is a significant discount against the 36.6X average of its sector, the 57.3X of Amazon, and the 32.5X of JD.com.
Moving ahead, Alibaba's quarterly profit is expected to jump 34.9 million to reach $16.72 billion, according to our new Zacks Consensus Estimates.
The organization's full-year fiscal 2020 income is then estimated to rise by almost 33 percent, with revenues forecast to rise by 32.2 percent above our current year forecast for 2021. Alibaba's consolidated quarterly earnings are expected to rise by 10.7 percent.
