經濟廣角:阿里巴巴股價下跌近10%
ALIBABA SLIDES AFTER YAHOO SELLS STAKE
Shares of , the world's largest online platform for trade between companies, dropped almost 10 per cent yesterday after Yahoo sold its entire 1 per cent stake in the listed unit for about $150m.
Analysts took the move as an indication that may be peaking after a sustained rally in its share price since January this year.
But the step again raised questions over Yahoo's long-term commitment as a key shareholder of Alibaba. The US internet company still owns 39 per cent of the unlisted parent of .
Yahoo sold the stake to realise profits made since Alibaba's 2007 listing.
“Yahoo regularly evaluates its financial investments and the value of its 1 per cent direct IPO investment in has increased substantially. This increase is why Yahoo sold this financial position,” the company said.
Its move came barely a week after Jack Ma, Alibaba's founder and chairman, sold what the company said was less than 5 per cent of his holdings in the listed unit for HK$270m ($34m).
This was “likely to remove any stigma associated with Yahoo selling shares in ”, said James Mitchell, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, in a research note.
“ shares have rallied sharply, up 300 per cent year to date and up 50 per cent since Yahoo's initial investment.”
Alibaba has had strong growth during the past year, benefiting from the financial crisis as small and medium-sized enterprises turned to the internet as a low-cost marketing channel.
But Yahoo has not profited from this growth. Although the company had hoped that its 2005 tie-up with Alibaba would help it get its feet on the ground in the world's largest internet market by users, the opposite has happened.
According to Analysys, the Beijing-based internet research house, Yahoo's China site is now marginalised with a market share of 6 per cent, compared with close to 30 per cent for Google and more than 60 per cent for Baidu, the local search giant.
全球最大電子商務網上貿易平臺阿里巴巴()的股價昨日下跌近10%。此前，雅虎(Yahoo)以大約1.5億美元出售了所持該公司上市部門全部1%的股份。
分析師們認爲，此舉表明阿里巴巴股價自今年1月以來的持續上漲也許已經見頂。
但是，此舉再次給雅虎作爲阿里巴巴關鍵股東的長期承諾劃上了問號。這家美國互聯網公司仍擁有阿里巴巴未上市母公司39%的股份。
雅虎出手上述股份，以鎖定自阿里巴巴2007年上市以來其股價的增值。
“雅虎經常評估其各項金融投資，而本公司對阿里巴巴的1%直接IPO投資的價值，已有大幅增長。這種增值就是雅虎出售此項金融投資的原因，”該公司表示。
就在一週前，阿里巴巴的創始人和董事長馬雲(Jack Ma)以2.7億港元（合3400萬美元）出售了所持上市部門的部分股票。據該公司稱，馬雲所持股份不到阿里巴巴的5%。
此舉“可能消除了雅虎出售阿里巴巴股份的顧忌”，高盛(Goldman Sachs)分析師詹姆斯•米歇爾(James Mitchell)在一份研究報告中表示。
“阿里巴巴股價已大幅上漲，今年迄今上漲了300%，自雅虎最初投資以來也已上漲50%。”
過去一年來，得益於金融危機，阿里巴巴實現了強勁增長，因爲中小企業紛紛轉向互聯網，將其當作一種低成本營銷渠道。
但雅虎並未獲益於這種增長。雖然該公司曾希望，2005年與阿里巴巴建立聯盟關係，將有助於自己在全球用戶最多的互聯網市場落腳，但實際發生的情況恰好相反。
據北京互聯網研究機構——易觀國際(Analysys)介紹，雅虎的中國網站現在已被邊緣化，市場份額只有6%，而谷歌(Google)的中國市場份額接近30%，中國本土搜索巨擘百度(Baidu)的市場份額超過60%。
