CICC: Maintaining Alibaba-W's (09988) “Outperform the Industry” rating target price of HK$172
The Zhitong Finance App learned that CICC released a research report stating that it maintains Alibaba-W (09988, BABA.US) revenue and profit forecasts and maintains a “outperforming industry” rating. The target prices for Hong Kong stocks and US stocks are HK$172 and $178, respectively. Compared with current stock prices, there is 58% and 60% upward space, respectively. The bank is optimistic about the company's cloud computing and AI growth space. Currently, the company's Hong Kong stocks and US stocks correspond to FY27 16 times and FY28 11 times and 11 times the non-common standard price-earnings ratio, respectively.
CICC's main views are as follows:
The company's recent situation
CICC was recently invited to attend the 2026 Tmall Shuang11 Global Carnival Season press conference. A total of 1 million global brands and 72 million products participated in this year, all of which reached record highs. The press conference focused on the brand's operations in the AI era, and introduced the latest developments in AI in consumer search, merchant marketing, and internal business operations.
Full AI link helps merchants explore new business opportunities
On the product side, at the platform level, Taobao's underlying AI model adds intent understanding, which allows the e-commerce platform's search and recommendation mechanism to thoroughly understand users and products, so that products can obtain more opportunities for cross-scenario and cross-category matching. For the C-side, Taobao AI search is based on the Qwen3.8 series multi-modal model, shifting from keyword search to long-tail intent understanding. In September 2026, general knowledge queries (queries) increased by 50.4% compared to the same week in April; functions such as Polaroid shopping, voice shopping guides, and AI fitting also made Taobao more aware of consumers and enhanced the shopping experience.
Facing the B-side, AI is further extended from platform tools to the daily business workflow of merchants. Wanxiang Dianjing uses AI reasoning to replace label targeting to help merchants discover people not previously covered. In the future, it will cover all of Ali Mama's advertising products, which is expected to increase merchant marketing returns and support advertising monetization. In addition, Qianwen Office launched the first e-commerce version of the industry version before Double 11. It is positioned as a third-party e-commerce agent for merchants on all platforms, allowing AI to take care of business matters such as store inspection, business analysis, and material generation.
Big promotion rules continue with direct reductions, increased subsidies, and AI extended to marketing and new categories
In terms of price, the platform continued to abolish the rules of full cross-store reduction and direct downsizing by merchants since last year, and invested more than 3 billion yuan in platform supplementary coupons and more than 2 billion yuan in gold mining benefits. On the AI side, the platform will launch AI virtual idols with 24-hour live streaming. Tokens from model manufacturers such as Smart Spectrum and Kimi will also participate in Double 11 as a new category.
Profit forecasting and valuation
CICC kept its revenue and profit forecasts unchanged, maintaining Alibaba-W's “outperforming the industry” rating. The target prices for Hong Kong stocks and US stocks were HK$172 and $178, respectively. Compared with the current stock prices of Hong Kong stocks and US stocks, there is 58% and 60% upside, respectively. The company's Hong Kong stocks and US stocks currently correspond to FY27 16 times and FY28 11 times and 11 times the non-common standard price-earnings ratio, respectively.
Risk Alerts
Macroeconomic uncertainty; regulatory impact; lower-than-expected corporate demand.