[ET Net News Agency, 17 February 2020] Daiwa Research lifted its target price for
Alibaba Group (BABA)(09988) to HK$260 from HK$250 and maintained its "buy" rating.
The research house cited BABA management expecting the novel coronavirus outbreak to
"significantly" weigh on near-term revenue growth of its China retail marketplace and
local services businesses, while demand has remained resilient.
Daiwa said a prolonged holiday period for factories and logistics firms of over 2 weeks
has resulted in a large backlog of unfulfilled Taobao/Tmall orders, which will lead to a
higher-than-usual order cancellation rate.
But Daiwa also believes the outbreak will likely reshape Chinese consumers' shopping
behavior to become more digitalized in the long run and this bodes well for BABA's new
retail investments.
It trimmed its FY2020-22 revenue forecasts by 3-5% and earnings estimates by 4-8% on the
outbreak impact and likely delay in monetisation of new Taobao ad inventories. (KL)