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Why Alibaba Is Worth More Than Amazon, in Three Charts

Growth, profit, potential.

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Jason Del Rey has been a business journalist for 15 years and has covered Amazon, Walmart, and the e-commerce industry for the last decade. He was a senior correspondent at Vox.

As of Tuesday afternoon, investors are valuing China’s Alibaba at $215 billion. That’s more than Amazon. That’s more than eBay. And it’s about as much as both of them combined.

That might surprise people who look at the size of the companies. Alibaba recorded revenue of $8.46 billion in its last fiscal year, compared with Amazon’s $74.45 billion and eBay’s $16.04 billion.

But there’s more to the Alibaba story beyond sales. The following three charts, when taken together, help explain why investors are so excited about Alibaba.

1. It’s very, very profitable.

2. It’s growing really fast.

Alibaba-Amazon-Ebay-Chart-3

3. There are already more online shoppers in China than in the U.S., and there’s still a lot more room for growth in China.

US Alibaba population chart

china alibaba population chart map

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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