This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Alibaba’s (NYSE:BABA) AI moment just punched through the noise. The company’s reborn Qwen app crossed 10 million downloads in a single week, a burst of traction that helped lift Alibaba shares more than 5% in Hong Kong. The relaunch essentially a unification of its earlier iOS and Android apps under the Qwen banner lands at a time when China still doesn’t have access to ChatGPT, giving Alibaba a rare opening to shape the country’s front-end AI experience. And in a market obsessed with pace, Qwen’s early ramp could be one of the faster adoption arcs in China outside Meta’s Threads, a signal that investors may not want to overlook.
The question now is whether Alibaba can turn that pop of momentum into something durable. Kenny Ng at China Everbright Securities International suggested that Qwen’s ability to lift Alibaba’s to-consumer business could be a meaningful swing factor for the company’s future valuation, especially as investors instinctively compare its trajectory to OpenAI. Management is already leaning into that narrative: under CEO Eddie Wu, Alibaba has repositioned itself as an AI-first company and plans to layer agentic AI features into Qwen that support online shopping across platforms such as Taobao. Even its wider ecosystem is moving in sync. Over the weekend, Ant Group disclosed that its own multimodal AI assistant, LingGuang, topped one million downloads in just four days.
That sets the stage for a potentially consequential investor conversation. Alibaba said it plans to weave digital maps, food delivery, travel booking, office tools, e-commerce, education, and health guidance directly into the Qwen app a bid to turn it into a single AI-driven consumer entry point. Those ambitions could be top of mind when management faces investors during Tuesday’s quarterly results. For now, the download numbers offer an early hint that Alibaba may be entering a new phase, one where mass-market AI adoption becomes a possible driver of both sentiment and valuation.