The company may be still celebrating its 20th anniversary, but today marks another important milestone for Alibaba – the fifth anniversary of Alibaba Group’s initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange – still the largest in history at $25 billion. Since then, Alibaba has transformed from an e-commerce company into an entire digital economy, with businesses and affiliates covering everything from online shopping, payments and logistics to entertainment, local services and brick-and-mortar retail.
Alibaba, now about a $465 billion market cap company with about 100,000 staff worldwide, has grown to serve 755 million shoppers on its platforms. Its delivery network handled more than 25 billion packages last year generated on its marketplaces. Moreover, about 40 million people are directly and indirectly employed by the company’s e-commerce ecosystem in China, while brands around the globe have chosen Alibaba as their preferred gateway to what is on track to become the most-important consumer market in the world. And with innovations such as New Retail, Alibaba is changing the way people shop, not just in China but around the world as the company continues to globalize.
This most-recent era in Alibaba’s history started with its journey to the NYSE. Here’s a look back at that special time.
