阿里巴巴国内市场收入猛增

国内最大的B2B网站阿里巴巴昨日公布2008年度全年业绩，公司在国内市场的营收较去年增长78％，大大超过其国际市场发展速度。财报显示，2008年阿里巴巴的中国交易市场的营业收入为人民币10.94亿元，较2007年增长78％，主要是由于“中国诚信通”付费会员及增值服务销售额增加。

截至到2008年底，阿里巴巴的中国交易市场拥有37万名“中国诚信通”会员。而同期的国际交易市场营收业绩就相形见绌，2008年度阿里巴巴国际交易市场营收19.07亿元，较2007年增长23％，其中包括了阿里软件的小部分贡献。由此在2008年，阿里巴巴的中国交易市场占总收入的比重由2007年的28％迅速上升至36％。

阿里巴巴公司管理层判断，中国的出口负增长在接下来的几个月仍会持续；国内市场面对全球经济下滑也难以独善其身，4万亿刺激经济方案及其他财政刺激方案很多都是通过基础设施建设投资，对公司的目标客户即中小企业产生的影响可能不是立竿见影的。不过，阿里巴巴表示希望通过发展注册用户、增值业务销售以及成本控制来应对。

Source

Alibaba Soars 19 Percent

Alibaba Soars 19 Percent As Market Bounces

HONG KONG, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Shares in Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba.com Inc <1688.hk> leapt more than 19 percent on Tuesday as the market bounced off session lows, cheered by a rally in Tokyo.

Alibaba also unveiled an online platform known as "Alimama" on Tuesday that, after a 100-day trial period, had become the country's largest online-advertising exchange platform with more than a million registed users and a billion daily page views.

Alibaba went as high as HK$38.50 before retracing to stand about 14 percent higher in late afternoon trade.

Alibaba.com Shares

Alibaba.com shares begin listing up 124% in Hong Kong
Posted: 06 November 2007 1102 hrs

HONG KONG : Shares in Chinese online marketplace Alibaba.com opened to huge demand in Hong Kong on Tuesday, rising 124 percent from the initial public offering price in early trading, dealers said.

Stock in the company, which links Chinese manufacturers with buyers across the world, soared from the offer price of HK$13.50 (US$1.74) to HK$30.20.

The sparkling opening comes after demand from institutional and individual investors surpassed allocation 150-fold, underlining the virtually insatiable demand for Chinese equities in the midst of China's economic boom.

The firm raised US$1.5 billion with its IPO, in the process becoming the biggest Internet offering since Google in 2004.

Investors have been attracted by the company's potential to tap both the mainland's thriving manufacturing and Internet sectors. - AFP/ch

阿里巴巴明香港掛牌

[2007-11-05] 阿里巴巴明香港掛牌 發行價13.5港元

【文匯專訊】將於週二在香港掛牌的阿里巴巴(1688.HK)昨日(4日)宣佈，以招股價區間上限，即13.5港元為發行價，融資額為15億美元。以此計算，阿里巴巴市值為682億港元，市盈率逾100倍。

新股配發基準:認購20手配1手

阿里巴巴昨日宣佈新股的配發基準，認購1手的27.84萬人中只有1.67萬人成功獲發1手，中籤率只有6％，為近期最難抽中的新股，申請人須認購20手才會穩獲1手。

本次共有56.62萬人申請阿里巴巴，其中55.55萬人屬於500萬元以下的A組組別，認購500萬元以上的B組組別只有1.07萬人。

基於該股的公開發售部分的回撥上限僅由15％增至25％，有別於其它新股回撥至50％的做法，消息指出保薦人考慮到認購者眾多，已經將原來申請40手始穩獲1手，降至目前申請20手便可穩獲1手，令A組獲分發的股份數量較B組為多。

根據分配基準，散戶以10.9萬港元成本借足九成孖展，認購8萬股將穩獲兩手阿里巴巴股份；相反若B組大戶以109萬元成本借足九成孖展，認購80萬股也只會獲分6手阿里巴巴股份。以26港元暗盤價，以及6.5厘孖展息率計算，散戶的回報率高達9.85％，相反認購80萬股的大戶回報只有1.84％。


小額孖展回報率較高

本次阿里巴巴凍結的資金達4475.18億港元，相當於公開發售部分超額認購257倍，凍結資金規模「險勝」5月招股的百麗國際（1880），當時百麗凍結資金達4463.5億港元。以一星期拆息3.02厘計算，阿里巴巴單是凍資已淨賺3.7億港元。
　
扣除包銷佣金、獎金及估計發售開支後，阿里巴巴本次將集資29.39億港元，當中60％將用作策略性收購及業務發展，餘下款額將用作發展內地及國際現有業務、購買計算機設備及一般營運之資金等。

Alibaba.com

Alibaba.com prepares to open public share offering to investors
Posted: 04 November 2007 2344 hrs

HONG KONG : After weeks of hype and with demand exceeding the share allocation more than 150-fold, China's largest-ever Internet IPO will finally list Tuesday, illustrating the insatiable demand for Chinese equities.

Alibaba.com, the online business-to-business marketplace, will be the biggest Internet initial public offering since Google in 2004 when it appears on the Hong Kong market.

Investors have been attracted by the company's rare potential to tap both the mainland's thriving manufacturing and Internet sectors.

Further encouraged by the scorching performance of the Hong Kong bourse in recent months, retail investors queued up to get their hands on the firm's prospectus.

The company said on Sunday it was on track to raise the 1.5 billion US dollars it was aiming for after setting its offer price at 13.50 Hong Kong dollars. But the reported scale of the rush for shares has left experienced onlookers flabbergasted.

Demand for the 375-million-Hong-Kong-dollar retail tranche of shares was 58 billion Hong Kong dollars, while the institutional tranche -- which saw global giants such as Cisco and American Insurance Group vying for a slice of the company -- attracted 160 billion Hong Kong dollars of orders for just 1 billion Hong Kong dollars of shares.

The huge inflow of funds into Hong Kong from hopeful investors across the globe has even been cited as a reason for the intervention by the de facto central bank to protect the Hong Kong dollar.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority made the move for the first time in two years because the excessive liquidity heading into the territory, much of it aiming to buy Alibaba shares, was threatening the local currency's peg to the US dollar.

Tony Nafte, a senior economist at CLSA, said the demand is simply a reflection of the wider picture of huge liquidity from the mainland, which China's government has tried to mop up by allowing it to flow to Hong Kong.

"The success (of any IPO) is based on the same principles as the strength of Hong Kong's current market -- (the feeling that) that money flowing in from China, or at least the perception of money heading in from China, will keep pushing the market up," he said.

"In this kind of atmosphere, if you put in an IPO, it will do fantastically."

Howard Gorges, vice chairman for South China Securities, says the listing also shows that Hong Kong is now capable of competing with the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones in terms of attracting investment.

"In the past Wall Street was the place that such listings would go to, now Hong Kong can give a company like Alibaba the same big reception," he said.

"Sophisticated investors, who can understand Alibaba's model, are here, and we have seen that any quality IPO lately has been very highly over-subscribed in Hong Kong."

Alibaba.com, which is part of the wider Alibaba Group, and their backers believe that their business model is robust.

The company's success has been built on providing small and medium size (SME) Chinese manufacturers with a way to sell their products both within China's huge internal market and increasingly across the world, using an English-language version of the site.

In their launch prospectus they said there are 42 million SMEs in China in 2006. Internet use has risen 23.4 percent annually since 2002, with 137 million users in 2006, the report added.

Financial performance has also been impressive. Revenue has grown from 359.4 million yuan in 2004 to 1,363.9 million in 2006, although the listing will still value the company at around 100 times its projected earnings for this year.

Such figures are impressive for a business that started just seven years ago in founder Jack Ma's apartment. At the time he had just 18 employees, now he has around 4,400 working for Alibaba.com, based in Hangzhou, near Shanghai.

But the huge numbers involved have also raised the fear that the listing could mark the high point of a bubble.

"The party is going to come to a bit of a halt. So it is possible that somebody is going to get caught," added Nafte. - AFP/ac