Alibaba (BABA) stock has received a higher price target from Mizuho Securities, securing a top spot among Asian internet companies. Mizuho’s five-star-rated analyst, James Lee, raised the target on BABA stock to $170 from $140, highlighting the company’s significant growth potential in AI (artificial intelligence) initiatives. Lee also reaffirmed his Buy rating on BABA stock.
Mizuho Spotlights Alibaba’s AI Growth
Mizuho’s deep dive into Alibaba’s AI strategy reveals a clear and structured roadmap for its expansion. The investment bank highlighted that Alibaba has established a solid foundation for AI investments, ranging from scaling AI models to developing consumer-focused platform models.
Additionally, Lee believes Alibaba’s AI initiatives will enhance internal productivity while driving revenue growth in its cloud computing division, fueled by increasing AI-related demand. Moreover, Mizuho Alibaba’s extensive AI integration across its other core sectors, with focus on e-commerce.
Mizuho Backs Qwen AI
Lee emphasized that Alibaba’s Qwen AI is already a strong contender among many leading global AI models. The company has leveraged this edge by embedding Qwen into multiple development tools, enhancing its cloud business portfolio.
Interestingly, Alibaba yesterday unveiled Qwen2.5-Omni-7B, a new multimodal AI model capable of processing text, images, audio, and video while generating real-time text and speech responses. The company claimed that its latest AI model raises the bar, offering an advanced multimodal technology optimized for deployment on edge devices such as mobile phones and laptops.
Alibaba’s latest model launch comes after the January debut of the upgraded Qwen 2.5 AI model. Earlier this month, the company also introduced an enhanced version of its AI assistant, Quark.
Is Alibaba Stock a Buy or Sell?
BABA stock has gained momentum amid growing optimism over China’s AI advancements, particularly after the launch of DeepSeek in January. Year-to-date, BABA stock has gained almost 60%.
Turning to Wall Street, BABA stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating on TipRanks based on 16 Buys assigned in the last three months. At $165.61, the Alibaba share price target implies a growth rate of 22% on the current trading price.
