Alibaba Officially Worth More Than Facebook After NYSE Debut

Reaching US$100 briefly, Alibaba shares settle at US$93.89 after its debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

Photo Credit: CC-By-sa-2.0

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba exploded onto the New York Stock Exchange on Friday with a fiery debut. The shares, which were initially price at US$68 on Thursday, are reported by theGuardian to have briefly reached US$100. The shares eventually settled at US$93.89.

“We have a dream,” said founder Jack Ma, as he rang the opening bell to officially launch the flotation on the NYSE.

Ma, a former English teacher, started the site from his one-bedroom apartment in Hangzhou in 1998. He said that he got the idea for his business when he visited the US.

After a brief delay Alibaba’s shares hit the NYSE late morning, reaping a total increase of 38% by the end of the day. The share sales were initially scheduled to begin at 10:30, but were delayed due to the amount of orders coming from over 1,700 investment firms worldwide.

Rapid Ratings chief executive James Gellert said the initial public offering IPO marked a watershed moment. “This puts the US on notice that global tech is about more than Silicon Valley,” he said. “Every tech company in the US that is in Alibaba’s general business is paying close attention. This company is going to be a formidable competitor with a tremendous amount of cash.”

Poised to dominate

After the frenzy it caused on the NYSE, what Yahoo Finance called the “Baba effect,” Alibaba is now worth over US$231 billion. That’s more than Facebook, which comes in around US$200, or Amazon and eBay combined. It also makes Ma the richest man in China, as his Alibaba shares are now worth close to US$19 billion.

What’s next for the e-commerce giant? Well, according to Ma, this is still only the beginning.

“We hope in the next 15 years the world changes because of us,” said Ma. “We hope in 15 years people say this is a company like Microsoft, IBM, Walmart. They changed, shaped the world … We want to be bigger than Walmart.”

Alibaba now controls 80% of online commerce in China and Ma has ambitions to further grow the company in its homeland, as well as the US and Europe.