如果上市，阿里巴巴值一千亿美元

    阿里巴巴（Alibaba）能否成为中国下一家千亿美元级别的上市公司？何时迈出这关键的一步？这家位于杭州的电子商务巨头对这个问题依然含糊其辞。但公司创始人马云迟早需要为投资者提供退路，更不用提公司的员工了。因此，首次公开募股将是最有可能的解决方案。公司应该获得怎样的估值？目前应该是开始思考这个问题的时候了。

    阿里巴巴的主营业务是销售。它的在线商城天猫（Tmall）为耐克（Nike）和联合利华（Unilever）等品牌提供了一个网络店面，而淘宝则主要用于C2C交易。和它最为接近的同行应该是亚马逊（Amazon）和eBay。可惜的是，在估值方面，并没有一家与阿里巴巴完美匹配的公司：与亚马逊不同，阿里巴巴并未持有库存或管理仓库；而与eBay不同，阿里巴巴公司的大多数收入都来自广告，而不是用户收费。

    与此同时，它的业务范围却变得日益广泛，这也可能使估值变得更加困难。阿里巴巴占据着中国电子商务市场的大部分份额。而据中国互联网信息中心（China Internet Network Information Centre）统计，去年中国电子商务市值为2,040亿美元。如今，阿里巴巴有一个移动操作系统，为供应商提供贸易融资，甚至可能开始提供消费贷款。公司首席策略师称，公司的目的是打造“全球最大的数据共享平台”。

    好在有两个数据非常重要。一个是阿里巴巴能卖多少钱。另外一个则是公司的“提成”，即公司通过在它网站上完成的每笔交易中抽取的百分比。提成可能通过广告或交易手续费的形式，也可能综合两种方式。但最终，它代表了公司能够从卖家手中抽取的现金。其他服务，例如借贷等也可能带来收入。但在目前，它们主要只是留住用户、维持市场份额的主要手段而已。

    我们来粗略估算一下它的市值。第一个问题是，总体市场能够变得多大。假设未来两年，中国电子商务以35%的速度增长，而阿里巴巴仍能够保持目前约80%的市场份额。这将使它在2014年获得价值接近3,000亿美元的交易——超过2012年eBay市场份额的四倍。

    Could Alibaba be China's next $100 billion stock market listing? The Hangzhou-based e-commerce giant continues to be coy over when it will take the plunge. But sooner or later founder Jack Ma will need to offer some kind of exit for his backers, not to mention employees, and an initial public offering is the most likely solution. Now is a good time to start asking how the company should be valued.

    Alibaba's main business is selling. Its Tmall online stores provide a shop front for brands like Nike (NKE) and Unilever (UL), while Taobao is focused on consumer-to-consumer trade. The closest U.S. peers might be Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY). Sadly for valuation purposes, there's no perfect match: unlike Amazon, Alibaba doesn't hold inventory or manage warehouses, and unlike eBay, it gets most of its revenue from advertising, not charging users.

    Meanwhile, its range of services gets ever wider, and potentially harder to value. As well as accounting for the majority of China's e-commerce, a market worth $204 billion last year according to the China Internet Network Information Centre, Alibaba now has a mobile operating system, offers trade financing to vendors and may even start offering consumer loans. The company's chief strategist says it aims to be "the world's biggest data sharing platform."

    Fortunately, there are two numbers that really matter. One is how much Alibaba can sell. The other is its "take," or what percentage it gets from each transaction on its sites. That take might come through advertising or through transaction fees, or a mixture of both. But ultimately, it represents the cash the company can squeeze out of its sellers. Other services like lending may create revenue, but for now they are mainly ways to lock in users and maintain market share.

    Consider a back-of-envelope valuation exercise. The first question is how big the overall market can get. Say e-commerce in China grows 35% a year for the next two years, and that Alibaba can keep its current market share of around 80%. That would give it just under $300 billion of transactions in 2014 - over four times what eBay's marketplaces handled in 2012.