E-commerce giant Alibaba wants to go public in the US

One of the world’s largest internet companies, Alibaba from China, wants to go public in New York. It will be one of the largest IPOs ever made by an internet company. The company’s value is estimated at between $130 and 235 billion.

According to the documents it has submitted to the American stock watchdog, Alibaba expects to raise a billion dollars, which is about 720 million euros. According to The New York Times, the company could raise $15 to $20 billion with the IPO. This makes it one of the largest internet IPOs ever. Facebook raised $16 billion in its IPO in 2012. As a whole, Alibaba, currently still a private company, is worth 130 to 235 billion euros, according to analysts.

The Chinese e-commerce giant is relatively unknown in the West, but is one of the top three internet companies in China. The company operates a large web store under its own name, but is also behind Tmall, a site where companies can sell their own products directly to consumers and where Nike, Disney and Apple are active. Alibaba also has a similar site for small Chinese businesses and Alibaba has a competitor for PayPal.

Last year, $250 billion, or 178 billion euros, was traded through Alibaba; that’s more than eBay and Amazon combined, notes The New York Times. Despite the fact that Alibaba is going public in the United States, the company wants to continue to expand especially in China. A large part of the Chinese have never ordered anything online or have never even been online.