Alibaba Soars As Management Wows Investors In Presentation

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA soared higher by more than 11 percent early Thursday morning after the company hosted Day One of an Analyst Day presentation. Alibaba's CEO Daniel Zhang and Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu presented investors with an update to its 2018 outlook, Barron's reported. The company expects to see a revenue growth rate of 45 percent to 49 percent next year, which is notably higher versus Wall Street's expectations for 9- to 13-percent growth. Investors should be reminded that Alibaba's Investor Day presentation in fact spans several days and the company's founder Jack Ma will be speaking on Friday.

2020 Outlook

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Alibaba's guidance implies its revenue will fall between CNY33.3 billion ($4.9 billion) to CNY34.3 billion.

Alibaba's guidance was met with applause from those in attendance as the company also laid out a new vision: It wants to be viewed as a behemoth built on data. Management is positioning the company to become an integrated ecosystem that is able to collect, analyze and apply big data to help online retailers on its platform to deliver a better experience.

Alibaba believes its initiatives will help grow its total gross merchandise volume up from $547 billion last year to $1 trillion by 2020. The company also hopes to serve two billion customers across the entire world.

At time of publication prior to Thursday's opening bell, Alibaba shares were up 12.77 percent at $141.68.