BABA Jumps After New Qwen AI App Downloads Cross 10M In First Week – ChatGPT, Google On Guard As Alibaba Plans Global Rollout

An international version of the app is planned for later.

• Alibaba said on Sunday that its newly launched Qwen AI app crossed 10 million downloads.
• The growth puts Qwen among the world's fastest-growing apps.
• Alibaba plans to add agentic AI, shopping, and other capabilities to Qwen and launch it in overseas markets under a different branding.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s U.S. shares gained 3.6% in early premarket on Monday, featuring as the top trending ticker on Stocktwits, after the company disclosed that its Qwen app drew more than 10 million downloads in the week after its relaunch.

Retail’s View

However, on Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for BABA remained ‘extremely bearish,’ unchanged since Friday, even though several users posted about the Qwen news. Alibaba disclosed the number in a WeChat blog post late Sunday U.S. time.

“Popping off hard tomorrow and into earnings on Tuesday morning. Predicting 175+ after earnings,” said one user. 

AI Apps’ Unprecedented Growth

Qwen’s debut underscores how artificial intelligence apps have set new highs for rapid adoption in recent times. OpenAI’s ChatGPT was the fastest to reach 100 million users three years ago.

Setting aside Meta’s Threads, which offers an easy way for Instagram’s users to create a Threads account, Alibaba’s Qwen is among the fastest movers, particularly in China, where ChatGPT is unavailable.

The Qwen Strategy

Alibaba launched Qwen last Monday. It is a facelift of its “Tongyi” app, and the company is reportedly trying for the service to be a broad-based AI app resembling OpenAI’s ChatGPT. An international version of the app is planned for later.

Alibaba has said Qwen is designed to complete tasks rather than simply respond to prompts. Users can generate comprehensive research reports, build multi-slide presentations, write code with AI assistance, and use camera- and voice-based features.

As of the last close, the BABA stock is up 82.7% year to date.

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