Alibaba (BABA): 듀얼 프라이머리 상장으로 전자상거래 거인을 지금 저가 매수

중국 전자상거래 마켓플레이스

온라인 마켓플레이스에 대해 이야기할 때, 지배적인 기업은 놀라운 수십 년 성장과 1조 8천억 달러 시가총액을 가진 Amazon인 것처럼 보입니다. 하지만 이것이 전부는 아닙니다.

Amazon이 북미 시장을 장악하고 있지만, 해외의 다른 대형 마켓플레이스와는 치열하게 경쟁하고 있습니다. 예를 들어, Amazon은 남미 시장에서 MercadoLibre (MELI ) 와, 동남아시아에서는 SEA와 경쟁에 어려움을 겪고 있습니다.

무엇보다도, 중국 전자상거래 플랫폼은 거대한 저비용 중국 제조 생태계와 15억 인구의 현지 시장에 직접 접근할 수 있다는 이점을 가지고 돋보입니다. 전체 글로벌 전자상거래 매출의 44%가 중국 전자상거래 플랫폼을 통해 이루어지고 있습니다.

출처: Forbes

이러한 마켓플레이스 중 하나가 현재 유럽에서 Amazon을 제치고 있으며, Alibaba는 2023년에 대륙 최대 온라인 마켓플레이스가 되었습니다. 따라서 중국이라는 ‘보호된’ 홈 마켓에서만 경쟁하는 것이 아니라, Alibaba는 이제 국제 시장을 정복하려는 강력한 기업으로 성장하고 있습니다.

Amazon vs Alibaba

Amazon은 2024년 9월까지 12개월 동안 $604B in revenue in the twelve months ending 2024년 9월를 기록했으며 $44B in net income. In comparison, Alibaba generated $133B (950 billion yuan) over the same period, with $9.7B in net income. So overall, it could be said that Alibaba is 1/4^th of Amazon (AMZN ). However, with a market capitalization of $196B compared to Amazon’s $1.8T, it is valued at 1/10^th of Amazon.

In the past few years, Amazon’s revenue has grown by 10-12% yearly. Meanwhile, Alibaba’s growth has been a bit more irregular, boasting a contraction in 2023 (-6%) and only 3% growth for 2024.

Overall, Alibaba can be said to be valued with much lower multiples due to lower growth recently, in part caused by China’s longer-lasting COVID lockdown than in the rest of the world and its economy struggling from a deflating real estate bubble.

Additional factors are the US-China trade tensions, as well as a crackdown of the CCP on Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, in 2022.

Alibaba 구조

Alibaba는 1999년에 설립되어 점차 많은 부문을 가진 거대 기업으로 성장했습니다. 최근에는 여섯 개 주요 부문으로 재구성되었습니다.

출처: Alibaba

Taobao 및 Tmall

이는 사업의 가장 큰 부분이며 중국 전자상거래 시장의 선두주자로, 소매 시장에 강하게 집중하고 있습니다. 현지 경쟁자들에게 시장 점유율을 잃은 기간을 겪은 후, it has restarted to grow in Q2 2024  at high-single-digit online GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) and double-digit order growth.

This restart of growth was achieved through several means:

• 전환율을 높이기 위한 향상된 알고리즘 기반 추천 및 제품 매칭.
• 공급업체 다변화를 통한 가격 경쟁력 있는 상품 확대.
• 4월에 출시된 Quanzhantui는 상인을 위한 새로운 AI 기반 전 플랫폼 마케팅 도구로, 자동 입찰, 최적화된 타겟팅, 성과 대시보드 시각화를 제공합니다.
• Dianxiaomi라는 새로운 AI 챗봇이 모든 상인에게 제공됩니다.

모든 상인에게 AI 도구를 제공하는 것은 중소기업이 대기업과 경쟁할 수 있도록 하는 Alibaba의 오랜 원칙과 일치합니다.

This was key to Alibaba’s historical success, as it allowed it to leverage the hundreds of thousands of smaller companies and entrepreneurs in Chinese society, creating at the time an unprecedented abundance of products and designs at competitive prices.

Alibaba’s 88VIP membership (similar to Amazon Prime) has also been growing at double digits. It offers shopping discounts, exclusive prices, take-away red packets, and watching videos without advertisements.

전반적으로 Tmall은 여전히 국내 최대 전자상거래 플랫폼 중 하나이며, 최근 몇 년간 Douyin(중국 외 TikTok)만이 그 입지를 크게 위협할 수 있었습니다.

출처: Baiguan

Alibaba Cloud

Amazon과 Alibaba를 포함한 대형 전자상거래 플랫폼은 자체 플랫폼을 위해 방대한 클라우드 컴퓨팅 용량을 관리해야 합니다. 따라서 이 능력을 외부에 제공하는 것이 논리적입니다.

This allows them to build their cloud capacity at an even larger scale, reducing costs for both B2B clients of the cloud service, and the internal demand for cloud computing.

오늘 클라우드 부문은 Amazon의 가장 수익성 높은 부문입니다. Alibaba Cloud는 중국 내에서 Huawei와 Tencent와 같은 강력한 경쟁자들로 인해 더 치열한 시장에 직면하고 있으며, 2020년 Alibaba의 거의 50%였던 시장 점유율이 오늘날 약 3분의 1로 감소했습니다.

출처: Jeff Townson

This strong competition should not overshadow that the overall Chinese cloud market is growing very quickly, leading to Alibaba Cloud growing at a double-digit percentage.

A strong point of Alibaba is its adoption of AI in cloud computing, as well as its triple-digit year-over-year growth in the adoption of its AI tools. The AI push includes generative AI like LLMs (Large Language Models), but also custom apps and has cut costs by half, making them a lot more affordable.

Alibaba’s AI ambitions are large, with the triple goals of:

1. 자체적인 AI 기반 모델을 개발하고 AGI(인공지능 일반)로의 진전을 이루는 것.
2. LLM을 Alibaba의 모든 운영 및 고객(구매자부터 상인까지) 전반에 통합하여 규모와 비용 효율적인 AI 기능을 창출하는 것.
3. 자체 LLM인 Tongyi Qianwen 2.0(2023년 말 출시)을 산업별 모델을 통해 활용하는 것.

AI 생태계

Alibaba는 또한 2022년에 시작된 커뮤니티 ModelScope(중국 최대 규모, 2,300개의 AI 모델 사용)를 기반으로 한 “Model-as-a-Service” 이니셔티브를 통해 중국 AI 오픈소스 생태계 구축을 선도하고 있습니다.

With ModelScope, we aim to simplify and reduce the cost of developing, customizing, and deploying AI models for developers and corporations, thereby enabling the creation of revolutionary AI applications that have a positive impact on society.

For instance, FaceChain, a third-party application based on multiple AI models on ModelScope, can generate a portrait from just one or two uploaded photos. We leveraged this model to help some elderly individuals in China develop digital portraits, which delighted them.

Zhou Jingren – Alibaba Cloud’s CTO

국제

This category includes Alibaba.com (wholesale) and Aliexpress (retail sales), but also Trendyol in Turkey, Miravia in Spain, and Lazada (16.4% market share in SE-Asia e-commerce).

This has long been the largest and best-known export marketplace for Chinese goods, long before the arrival of Pinduoduo’s Temu in the Western market. It is also the branch responsible for taking over Amazon’s top spot in the European markets.

The segment is growing extremely strongly, with 32% year-to-year growth and a strong performance in selected markets in Europe and the Gulf Region. Revenue from the segment was $3.2B in Q2 2024 from retail and $771M from wholesale.

The revenue from Alibaba is mirrored by the impact it has on these economies, with exports from 27 European countries via Alibaba’s platforms totaling €32.3B in 2023 and contributing a combined €57.9 billion to the gross domestic product of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain for the 2019-2023 period.

Alibaba is also exploring alternative models in other markets, such as a partnership with Brazilian Magazine Luiza (“Magalu”) to open and operate a storefront on AliExpress and vice versa.

Due to massive investment into growth, the segment is not profitable yet and lost $510M in Q2 2024.

Cainiao

This is the logistics arm of the Alibaba Group. Its revenue grew 16% year-to-year to $3.6M. The section is mostly there to help cross-border activity and boost the logistical capability of the group as a whole, as well as the capabilities of merchants on Alibaba’s platforms.

For example, it installed a total of 5,000 package lockers globally before Singles Day (a big sales event in Chinese e-commerce), especially in Russia, Poland, Spain, and France.

Ant Group

Ant Group is Alibaba’s former financing/banking division. It includes the very popular payment system AliPay, as well as various solutions for online banking, wealth management apps, insurance, loans, etc.

출처: Medium

Currently, Alibaba Group owns 33% of Ant Group. At the end of 2023, a proposed buy-back valued Ant Group at $79B, putting Alibaba’s share at a value of $26B, much lower than the previously expected valuation for the IPO in 2020.

The group became the target of an investigation by regulatory authorities and saw its planned 2020 IPO canceled at the last minute.

This was part of an overall effort to reduce the influence of Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma. Today, Ma’s voting rights were reduced from 50% to 6% and the Ant Group is a lot more independent than in the past.

This could open the way for an IPO, as it removes the political risk of the CCP conflict with Jack Ma, but the exact date is still undetermined.

서비스 및 기타

서비스

Over the years, Alibaba Group has accumulated an array of secondary businesses. For example, ele.me food delivery service, Amap online map service, as well as digital media and entertainment (Youku, Alibaba picture, Damai),

These activities are relatively small compared to the rest of the group and operating at a loss.

출처: Alibaba

기타

This segment gathers all the other various businesses acquired or developed internally over the year, including DingTalk (office tool), Quark (search engine), Fliggy (travel tickets), Alibaba Health (digital healthcare), and SunArt (online supermarket).

Some investors have criticized these businesses as distractions, and overall, it seems Alibaba’s management is now looking at either turning them profitable or stopping/selling them.

듀얼 프라이머리 상장 및 VIE

VIE

Stocks of Chinese companies are often complex structures, due to Chinese laws technically forbidding foreign ownership. At the same time, Chinese companies (and the Chinese government) are eager to raise capital abroad to finance the growth of the country’s economy and its corporations.

A compromise was found with the VIE (Variable Interest Entity) structure. Often based in the Cayman Islands or directly in the US, these corporate structures have a contract with the mother entity (for example, Alibaba in China), guaranteeing part of the profits of the “real company,” replicating ownership, but without direct “real” ownership.

출처: Corporate Finance Institute

While less strong of a claim on the company than direct share ownership, this has been an accepted option to invest in Chinese companies for many years.

However, a secondary issue is that Alibaba was publicly listed in the US, reducing its stock accessibility to Chinese investors.

듀얼 프라이머리 상장

Due to the listing complexities, Alibaba was mostly off-limits for most of China’s 210 million active retail investors – a pity when considering the reach and brand power of the company in its home market. It was especially a missed opportunity as a key factor in Alibaba’s low stock price (fear of sanctions) would not be relevant for Chinese investors.

To solve this, the company has changed its listing structure, achieving a dual primary listing status. So the company has become dual primary listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange from August 29^th.

This is also in line with the CCP’s goal of keeping/making Hong Kong an international finance hub independent of Western investors and capital.

Alibaba의 평가

There is definitely a “China discount” being applied to Chinese stock valuation, with world-class companies like Tencent, Alibaba, Jinko Solar, or CATL trading at a much lower valuation than their American counterparts.

Part of this discount is rational, with geopolitical tensions and trade conflict flaring between the US and China, with the background of China’s goal of reunification with Taiwan and US critics of Chinese support to Russia. We can, however, roughly calculate the scale of this discount.

First, we can consider that part of Alibaba’s value includes the $26B worth of participation in the Ant Group (which has been trading at a discount since the canceled 2020 IPO). In addition, the company has net tangible assets worth $96.6B, of which $80B is in cash.

So depending whether we want to consider just cash or net assets, together with Ant Group, this puts the other activities at the current valuation ($196B) minus $106B or $122B (cash or net asset + Ant Group).

This puts at a $74B-$90B valuation a business with:

• Amazon 매출의 1/4.
• 중국 전자상거래 부문의 선도적인 시장 점유율(전체의 약 1/3).
• 유럽 전자상거래 부문에서 1위.
• 중국 클라우드 시장의 1/3을 장악.
• 이제 국내 중국 투자자들이 접근 가능하며, 기업에 익숙하고 미국 시장 상장 폐지 위험에 대한 우려가 없습니다.

주주에 대한 수익

At the end of 2023, Alibaba distributed its first-ever dividends, looking to put to rest the idea that Chinese corporations do not return capital to shareholders.

The group aims to lift its return on invested capital into the double digits in the coming years.

It has also initiated a massive share repurchase program, taking advantage of the depressed share prices. In the last 3 years, the company reduced total shares by 9.5%, having spent $30B at an average price of $102/share.

If the repurchase of $10B / year continues, this would result at the current price in a 3-4% total share count reduction per year, on top of the current 2.5% dividend yield, not counting the growth of the business.

결론

Alibaba는 위험이 없는 투자가 아니며, 전자상거래에서의 선도적 위치가 중국과 미국 정부 양쪽으로부터 가치 파괴적인 강력한 관심을 끌어 여러 해에 걸친 주가 하락을 초래했습니다.

또한 중국 전자상거래와 클라우드 컴퓨팅 부문은 서구보다 훨씬 경쟁이 치열한 환경에서 운영되고 있습니다. 이러한 상황에서 Alibaba는 내일 사라지는 것은 아니지만, 서구 경쟁자보다 PDD/Temu, Douyin/TikTok, 텐센트, 화웨이 등과의 경쟁을 지속적으로 방어해야 합니다.

그럼에도 불구하고 Alibaba는 중국 전자상거래, 국제 전자상거래, 클라우드 컴퓨팅 등 주요 부문에서 여전히 강력한 리더이며, 핀테크 거인 Ant Group에 대한 대규모 지분을 보유하고 있습니다.

CCP와의 관계가 완화되고 Ant Group의 잠재적 IPO, 클라우드·전자상거래·국제 부문의 지속적인 성장, 그리고 중국 경제가 연간 5% 성장하는 등은 모두 향후 주식 재평가에 대한 강력한 근거가 됩니다.

또한 회사는 잭 마 시대를 뒤로하고, 새롭게 재편된 경영진과 조직을 통해 점차 새로운 방향을 모색하고 있습니다.

핵심 사업을 1,000억 달러 이하(Amazon의 1조 8천억 달러 대비)로 낮은 시가총액으로 평가하는 점을 감안하면 Alibaba는 가치 투자자에게 매력적인 선택입니다. 그러나 최근 몇 년간 주가가 하락하고 정체되는 등 실망을 안겨주기도 했습니다. 따라서 위험이 없지는 않으며, 투자자는 위험과 잠재력을 신중히 고려해야 합니다.

Alibaba 최신 소식