Citigroup: Alibaba has the strongest AI competitive advantage in the Chinese internet sector, maintaining a "buy" rating.

Citigroup released a research report stating that they will hold the 2026 Innovation Pioneer Enterprise Day event on April 1st and invite Alibaba management to participate in the meeting. The meeting will focus on topics including AI and cloud strategy, recent price increases and cloud market pattern, cloud profit margin improvement drivers, real-time retail updates, and the application of AI in e-commerce. The bank believes that with its full-stack capabilities, Alibaba has the strongest AI competitive advantage in the Chinese internet sector. The bank cited Alibaba management as saying that the group's key differentiation in the AI field lies in comprehensive full-stack capabilities, a strong ecosystem, and vertically integrated AI infrastructure covering hardware, platform, and applications. This integrated approach helps achieve a faster and more efficient monetization cycle from token generation, distribution to final commercialization. Management expects that revenue from model as a service will become the main driver to achieve the group's goal of $100 billion in revenue in five years. The bank has set a target price of $200 for Alibaba's U.S. shares and HK$199 for its H-shares, maintaining a "buy" rating.