NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 10, 2018 / Alibaba made headlines this week after the company announced that it has acquired Pakistan-based Daraz Group. Shares of Weibo Corporation saw a big close in the red yesterday despite sales and earnings jumping for the first quarter.

RDI Initiates Coverage on:

Weibo Corporation
https://rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=WB

Alibaba Group Holding Limited
https://rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=BABA

Weibo Corporation shares closed down a little over 14% on Wednesday. Losses came in despite the Chinese social media giant reporting solid first quarter results yesterday. For the quarter, Weibo reported sales of $350 million, a jump of 76% YOY and saw earnings nearly double to $0.50 per share compared to 0.26 per share in the year ago quarter Street was expecting earnings of $0.47 per share on revenue of $342 million. For the quarter Weibo reported it added 19 million monthly active users and now has 411 million monthly active accounts. Looking ahead the company has guided record revenues of around $425 million for the second quarter. This would mean a jump of 68% YOY. The company's CEO Gaofei Wang stated, "We continue to see great momentum in our business with advertising and marketing revenue growing 79% year over year in the first quarter. With ad budget shifting toward mobile, social and video, we are seeing our revenues benefiting from this secular trend."

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Alibaba Group Holding Limited shares closed down a modest 0.45% on Wednesday on nearly 13.8 million shares traded. The company recently announced that it has acquired Daraz Group, a Pakistan-based e-commerce company located in Southeast Asia. Daraz has 30,000 sellers and 500 brands on its platform said Alibaba's press release. Products on the platform include consumer electronics, household goods, beauty, fashion, sports equipment and groceries. According to Alibaba, Daraz' key markets are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal. Clavis Insight's APAC general manager, Declan Kearney, remarked, "With a combined netizen population of approximately 90 million (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal), Daraz's current market represents a sizable growth opportunity for Alibaba. Although the market is many years behind China (in terms of shopper sophistication & retailer e-capabilities), Alibaba's investment is certain to accelerate online retail growth over coming years." Alibaba's statement also read, "Daraz will be able to leverage Alibaba?s leadership and experience in technology, online commerce, mobile payment and logistics to drive further growth in the five South Asian markets that have a combined population of over 460 million, 60% of which are under the age of 35."

Access RDI's Alibaba Group Holding Limited Research Report at:
https://rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=BABA

Our Actionable Research on Weibo Corporation (NASDAQ: WB) and Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) can be downloaded free of charge at Research Driven Investing.

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