Daiwa: Maintains Alibaba's "buy" rating and target price of $180.

Morgan Stanley's report pointed out that Alibaba's performance is in line with expectations, but the stock price weakened after the results, as the market had high expectations for its cloud business. It is forecasted that as industry demand improves after March, Alibaba Cloud revenue will accelerate, customer management revenue will continue to grow at a double-digit rate, and with commission rate improvements, the "hold" rating is maintained with a target price of $180. Morgan Stanley expects Alibaba's cloud business revenue to increase by 22% in the first quarter of 2026, up from 18% in the previous quarter, with customer management revenue expected to increase by 10%, up by 12% in the previous quarter. It is believed that Alibaba's total merchandise transaction volume will continue to grow in line with industry growth, benefiting from higher user engagement driven by artificial intelligence technology, and the frequency of Taobao/Tmall transactions will increase. Core EBITA is expected to increase by 6%, taking into account reinvestment in Taobao/Tmall content, user acquisition, and subsidies, and these strategic measures will enhance competitiveness and deepen customer loyalty. Furthermore, Morgan Stanley maintains its revenue forecasts for 2026 and 2027 unchanged, with a 4-7% increase in adjusted EBITA. Alibaba has bought back $11.9 billion worth of shares in the past 12 months and declared $4.6 billion in dividends, yielding approximately 5%. They are confident in capturing the growth of the B2B industry demand through CSP and expect Alibaba's profitability to continue to improve.