Alibaba Group:Buy,Alibaba Computing Conference Day 2takeaways
Age of new IT (internet technology) and data intelligence. The company believesthat in the age of new IT, everything in daily life could be aesthesia, interconnected,online, and interactive in the future. Business efficiency can be further enhanced andimproved exponentially empowered by data intelligence of AliCloud. According toGartner, total IoT devices in the world will increase from 3.8bn in 2014 to 8.4bn in2017, and further grow to 20.8bn by 2020. Alibaba aims to become an infrastructureservices platform for IoT and helps its partners to evolve from Internet of Things (IoT)to Internet of Smart Things (IoST). The company has launched one-step solution -AliOS Things, to build IoT software and hardware infrastructure, and Alibaba aims toserve 10bn IoT devices with 1mn different solutions in the future.
AliCloud: growth potential in China and overseas. According to Gartner (Sep2017, Alibaba Cloud has surpassed Google Cloud as the 3rd largest IAAS provider inthe world, and expects to be among the top 2 players in the near future. Thecompany still sees large growth potential in China given that cloud penetration acrossindustries is still low at 40% in 2016 and AliCloud may provide higher value servicesbacked by data intelligence. AliCloud announced it will add an incremental 5 serviceregions including Indonesia, India and Malaysia. The company regards the ASEANmarket as a strategically important market. Alibaba has announced a new series ofproduct price cut across different products by 40%-50%.
AliGenie: from Internet of Things to Intelligence of Things. Alibaba’s voice-basedsmart device-AliGenie has been increasingly intelligent and applied in several newuser cases. 1) AliGenie Store is a newly launched use-and-go App Store in smartdevices. Users are able to use the functions without downloading any Apps but onlyspeak to the device. 2) AliGenie Inside, a one-stop hardware solution product, will beembedded in the well-known toy, Thomas the Tank Engine. The interactive Thomasthe Tank Engine will be available for sale from April 2018 on Tmall. 3) Sectorsolution: the company has successfully developed cases in sectors including hotel,new retail and travel.
Maintain Buy and USD204 TP: Our thesis rests on three points: (1) Alibaba hasvaluable data assets on its consumers that it can leverage to increase its value toboth buyers and brands, resulting in high monetization and margins; (2) it is thethought leader in China retail and its New Retail concept sets the stage for long-termvalue creation; (3) in our view its valuation is attractive, at 25.6x FY19e EPS.
