Alibaba:From Promise to Setback and The Potential for Rebound

Alibaba, once considered a promising investment tied to China's growth prospects, has faced significant setbacks in the past five years. Despite its declining stock price, the company has continued to expand its business, albeit at a slower pace. However, there are reasons behind Alibaba's decline in appeal, and it's worth exploring the likelihood of a stock rebound in the coming years.

During the past five years, Alibaba achieved impressive growth in annual revenue, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28% from fiscal 2018 to 2023. However, recent data indicates a concerning deceleration in growth over the past two years.

This slowdown can be attributed to two primary challenges. Firstly, Alibaba faced setbacks when China's antitrust regulators imposed a historic fine in 2021, leading to tighter restrictions on the e-commerce division. These restrictions weakened Alibaba's competitive position against rivals in the fiercely competitive online retail market.

Secondly, the economic slowdown during the pandemic, along with intermittent lockdowns, had a broad impact on consumer spending across Alibaba's platforms and hindered enterprise spending on its cloud infrastructure services.

To address these challenges, Alibaba made significant strategic moves to streamline its operations. The company restructured its business into six distinct groups, giving each group more autonomy to seek external funding or conduct IPOs. Alibaba plans to spin off its Cloud Intelligence group through an IPO and explore potential IPOs for its logistics and global digital commerce divisions.

These spin-off companies can generate fresh capital, improve overall margins, and expand more rapidly without being closely managed by Alibaba. If successful, they could lead to increased net profits and help alleviate concerns from antitrust regulators.

Looking ahead, the spin-offs initiated by Alibaba have the potential to attract significant investor attention. Alongside this, Alibaba's reported growth is expected to stabilize as the macroeconomic environment improves and its core markets expand. Projections show growth potential in China's e-commerce and cloud computing services markets.

Analysts forecast moderate growth for Alibaba's revenue and net income, driven by continued spin-offs and spending discipline. If Alibaba meets these expectations and maintains a modest growth rate, it could achieve substantial revenue and net income by fiscal 2028.

Considering these factors, even if Alibaba's valuations remain steady, its stock could potentially double in the next few years. However, the emergence of a new bull market and the resolution of delisting concerns could further elevate its valuations. In simple terms, Alibaba's stock could triple or exceed that growth by fiscal 2028.