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FinanceAlibaba Group

Alibaba’s big debut ranks it among largest U.S. companies

By
John Kell
John Kell
Contributing Writer and author of CIO Intelligence
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By
John Kell
John Kell
Contributing Writer and author of CIO Intelligence
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September 19, 2014, 1:25 PM ET
China-Based Internet Company Alibaba Debuts On New York Stock Exchange
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 19: Alibaba Group signage is posted outside the New York Stock Exchange prior to the company's initial price offering (IPO) on September 19, 2014 in New York City. The New York Times reported yesterday that Alibaba had raised $21.8 Billion in their initial public offering so far. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)Photograph by Andrew Burton—Getty Images
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Alibaba’s strong initial public offering values the Chinese e-commerce giant north of $200 billion, putting it among the 20 biggest companies by market capitalization in the U.S.

The stock jumped over 30% on its first day of trading on Friday, as investors angled for a piece of the largest stock offering to ever debut on the U.S. market. Alibaba’s (BABA) shares opened trading at $92.70 and at one point traded north of $98 a share — putting Alibaba’s market capitalization just a tad under Wal-Mart’s (WMT) value. The e-commerce company’s shares were most recently trading at a little more than $90.

“We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart,” Alibaba co-founder and Chairman Jack Ma told CNBC on Friday.

Just how big is Alibaba? Consider this: Alibaba’s market value is greater than Yahoo (YHOO), Netflix (NFLX), eBay (EBAY), Yelp (YELP), LinkedIn (LNKD), Twitter (TWTR) and Groupon (GRPN) — combined.

Individually, Alibaba is also worth more than 103-year-old International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and 75-year-old Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

“We hope 15 years later they say ‘this is a company like Microsoft, like IBM, like Wal-Mart. They changed, shaped the world,'” Ma said.

Alibaba’s strong showing is impressive as the company derives a bulk of its revenue from the Chinese market, and thus isn’t well known in the U.S. Alibaba started as an online marketplace for businesses to sell products to one another but soon expanded to consumers sales and online payments. In the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it mostly touted opportunities to tap China’s online shopping population, which it claims is relatively under penetrated and could continue to grow as the nation’s mobile base and usage continues to expand.

While Alibaba is certainly earning a high mark with investors, it isn’t the biggest fish in the pond. Alibaba’s valuation is just over a third of the value of Apple (AAPL), and also trails other heavyweights including Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG).

Click here for more from Fortune on Alibaba’s IPO.

About the Author
By John KellContributing Writer and author of CIO Intelligence

John Kell is a contributing writer for Fortune and author of Fortune’s CIO Intelligence newsletter.

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