????阿里巴巴（Alibaba）能否成為中國下一家千億美元級別的上市公司？何時邁出這關鍵的一步？這家位于杭州的電子商務巨頭對這個問題依然含糊其辭。但公司創始人馬云遲早需要為投資者提供退路，更不用提公司的員工了。因此，首次公開募股將是最有可能的解決方案。公司應該獲得怎樣的估值？目前應該是開始思考這個問題的時候了。

????阿里巴巴的主營業務是銷售。它的在線商城天貓（Tmall）為耐克（Nike）和聯合利華（Unilever）等品牌提供了一個網絡店面，而淘寶則主要用于C2C交易。和它最為接近的同行應該是亞馬遜（Amazon）和eBay。可惜的是，在估值方面，并沒有一家與阿里巴巴完美匹配的公司：與亞馬遜不同，阿里巴巴并未持有庫存或管理倉庫；而與eBay不同，阿里巴巴公司的大多數收入都來自廣告，而不是用戶收費。

????與此同時，它的業務范圍卻變得日益廣泛，這也可能使估值變得更加困難。阿里巴巴占據著中國電子商務市場的大部分份額。而據中國互聯網信息中心（China Internet Network Information Centre）統計，去年中國電子商務市值為2,040億美元。如今，阿里巴巴有一個移動操作系統，為供應商提供貿易融資，甚至可能開始提供消費貸款。公司首席策略師稱，公司的目的是打造“全球最大的數據共享平臺”。

????好在有兩個數據非常重要。一個是阿里巴巴能賣多少錢。另外一個則是公司的“提成”，即公司通過在它網站上完成的每筆交易中抽取的百分比。提成可能通過廣告或交易手續費的形式，也可能綜合兩種方式。但最終，它代表了公司能夠從賣家手中抽取的現金。其他服務，例如借貸等也可能帶來收入。但在目前，它們主要只是留住用戶、維持市場份額的主要手段而已。

????我們來粗略估算一下它的市值。第一個問題是，總體市場能夠變得多大。假設未來兩年，中國電子商務以35%的速度增長，而阿里巴巴仍能夠保持目前約80%的市場份額。這將使它在2014年獲得價值接近3,000億美元的交易——超過2012年eBay市場份額的四倍。

????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.