Alibaba shares rose last week after News founder Jack Ma expressed satisfaction with the company’s turnaround so far. It comes after co-founder and current chairman Joe Tsai told CNBC in late February that he felt more “confident” in Alibaba’s ability to remain a top player in e-commerce. Ma resigned as chairman in 2019. Wall Street analysts expect the business to grow, but some lowered their price targets last week. Their common concern is how much Alibaba is spending on future growth in the short term. China Internet analyst Alex Yao and his team wrote in a report on April 9 that Alibaba is “increasing its commitment to core domestic and international e-commerce and cloud investments.” , JPMorgan said it had revised its earnings forecast downward. They lowered their price target to $100 per share. , down from its previous $105 while maintaining an overweight rating. The new price target remains about 33% above Thursday’s closing price for Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares. The company’s stock price has fallen during a turbulent 12 months during which management was shaken up by a reorganization into six divisions aimed at spinoffs “to unlock shareholder value.” The company has canceled IPO plans for its cloud business and logistics division Cainiao one after another. “The first thing we did was admit we made a mistake,” Tsai said in an interview with Norges Bank Investment Management CEO Nicolai Tangen, according to a video released on April 3. Told. The company says it owns 2% of Alibaba shares. “We have acknowledged that we may not have been focused on ourselves in the past. [shopping app] “We pursue user experience,” Tsai said. “The second thing is to reorganize our workforce and change our organizational structure to fit our strategy.” Eddie Wu will become Alibaba’s CEO in September and will also serve as acting head of the company’s cloud business. He replaced Trudy Dye. Daniel Zhang, the company’s former CEO, abruptly resigned from his role as head of Taobao and Tmall’s e-commerce business in December, rather than staying on as head of the cloud division as originally planned. did. “In the short term, BABA’s financial indicators should continue to be weak.Given the continued investment of users in Taobao Tmall, [Alibaba International Digital Commerce] UBS analyst Kenneth Fong and his team wrote in a note on April 9 that, “If the macro recovery gains momentum and the new business strategy provides more concrete financial results, the “We expect a larger upside.” The company lowered its price target to $105 per share and maintained a buy rating. PDD Holdings’ Pinduoduo app and ByteDance’s local version of TikTok, Douyin, have emerged as two of Alibaba’s biggest competitors. Citing data from Quest Mobile, Nomura said the company has led the industry’s rapid growth in China with its Taobao and Tmall platforms, but has outpaced Alibaba in the relatively new field of generative artificial intelligence. It is also said to be popular. As of the end of March, it had about 3.7 million users, more than double that of Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen AI chatbot, and Baidu’s Ernie bot has about 2.5 million daily active users, data shows. According to the data, as of the end of March, Mr. Doubo maintained the lead in terms of average time spent per day with 8.4 minutes, while Alibaba’s Mr. Tongyi Qianwen came in second with 7.7 minutes. Alibaba is also integrating AI tools and models with its e-commerce and cloud businesses. However, Tsai said in an interview with Norges Bank Investment Management that Alibaba executives estimate that China is about two years behind the United States in terms of AI development. Six analyst reports published on Alibaba last week barely mentioned AI monetization. “We maintain a conservative view on BABA as business transformation will likely take time,” Morgan Stanley equity analyst Gary Yu and his team said in an April 10 note. Ta. Their price target is $85, which is in contrast to many price targets. Buy ratings and rate stocks with equal weight. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom and Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.