Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) has ambitious plans for Turkey. The company plans to invest $2 billion in Turkey, in addition to the $1.4 billion already invested through its unit Trendyol. Alibaba President Michael Evans broke the news to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan at the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly.
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Evans was heard saying that he has “confidence in Turkey’s sound economic fundamentals” and believes that it has the potential to become one of the biggest “e-export” countries in the world. Trendyol, Alibaba’s Turkish unit and one of the nation’s best e-commerce portals, also issued a statement confirming the news. Further specifics of the investment remain unknown at the time. Trendyol President Caglayan Cetin, who was also at the meeting, noted that some of the areas of investment will include a data center and a logistics center in Ankara and an export operation center at the Istanbul Airport.
Alibaba is going all in on its artificial intelligence (AI) goals. Last week, the company announced the commercial launch of its generative AI model, Tongyi Qianwen, after gaining Chinese regulatory approval. The model would soon become freely available as an open-source version for use “by the whole society,” an official post read. Recently, Alibaba’s former CEO Daniel Zhang unexpectedly announced his departure from his role as the head of the company’s cloud intelligence unit. Following this, new CEO Eddie Wu said that going forward, Alibaba will focus on two areas: “User first” and “AI-driven.”
Why is Alibaba a Good Stock?
With seven unanimous Buys from Top Analysts, Alibaba stock commands a Strong Buy consensus rating. Top Wall Street analysts are those who are awarded higher stars by the TipRanks Star Ranking System. This is based on an analyst’s success rate, average return per rating, and statistical significance (number of ratings).
On TipRanks, the average Alibaba price target of $145.43 implies 67% upside potential from current levels. Meanwhile, BABA stock has lost 5.3% so far this year.
