Back to square one: Alibaba's share price is back to where it was at its IPO

3/15/22 8:00PM

China changes course

‍China has pledged to keep its stock markets more stable and take measures to boost economic growth this morning, sending shares of tech companies Alibaba and JD.com up more than 25% at the time of writing. For e-commerce giant Alibaba that news couldn't have come any sooner, as the company's share price has been in a slump for much of the last 18 months, which has had little to do with the company's fundamentals.

Thanks to its ties with founder Jack Ma, Alibaba has been in the cross hairs of China's big tech crackdown. That has meant that, despite growing its revenue more than 13x from 2014 to 2021, Alibaba's share price found itself below its IPO price as recently as yesterday.

‍Not the time for tough love

‍China may have lost its appetite for beating up on big tech given all that's happened in the last few weeks. Russia's closeness with China (the "no limits" friendship), a fresh outbreak of Covid-19 (which has meant lockdowns) and a tougher regulatory outlook for US-listed Chinese companies have all put Chinese assets deeply out of favor with global investors. The result is a supportive Chinese state for its biggest tech companies... for now.

Rani Molla6h

OpenAI’s models are officially coming to Amazon

Amazon is finally getting in on the hottest ticket in tech.

After Microsoft announced yesterday that it has agreed to give up its exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s models, Amazon, as expected, will start offering them to customers — something Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says users have been asking for “for a really long time.” Some models are available now in preview, and the most powerful GPT versions will show up “in the coming weeks.”

This is a big shift in the AI cloud wars. Microsoft’s early bet on OpenAI gave Azure an edge by locking up the most in-demand models. Now that exclusivity is gone, Amazon and other competitors can finally offer them too, closing a key gap and competing more directly for AI customers.

Amazon Set to Sell OpenAI Tech After Microsoft Cedes Exclusivity

Claire Yubin Oh9h

Ship-tracking app surges as Iran war continues

As Middle East peace talks stretch on, with Tehran reportedly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade and the war ends, the owner of shipping intelligence platform MarineTraffic revealed that the app has gained millions of new users since the conflict began.

MarineTraffic’s user count jumped to 8.5 million this April, up from 3.5 million a year ago, the cofounder of its parent company, Kpler, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Paid subscribers, often workers within companies and governments looking for more data on supply chains and commodities trading, rose 11,000 in the same period.

Kpler, which also owns shipping intelligence platform FleetMon, draws its data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System, satellites, and more than 500 people on-site, like port terminal operators.

Per Appfigures data, MarineTraffic is estimated to have raked in almost $1 million across March and April in app revenue (through April 27), more than double the ~$346,500 from the same months last year. Across the full year, Kpler expects to earn between $300 million and $400 million in annual recurring revenues.

Rani Molla

pedal to the meta

10h

Meta could be getting ready to post its highest revenue growth since 2021

Meta’s outlook and analyst estimates suggest more than 30% revenue growth in Q1.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visits U.S. Capitol for Senate meetings

Tom Jones14h

Google will supply AI models to Pentagon in classified deal, per The Information

Google has become the latest tech company to ink an agreement to supply the Department of Defense (War) with AI, having reportedly closed a classified deal that allows the Pentagon to use its AI for “any lawful government purpose,” according to The Information.

The Information initially reported talks between the Alphabet-owned company and the US government around two weeks ago, following the messy breakdown of the relationship between Anthropic and the Trump administration — and the rushed OpenAI deal that took its place.

The move has reportedly sparked opposition among Google employees, with The Washington Post reporting that over 600 workers signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai to ask him to bar the Defense Department from using the company’s AI models for any classified work.