Alibaba IPO initiates new era in which China changes Internet

Chinese Internet-based e-commerce giant Alibaba launched its initial public offerings (IPO) in New York Stock Exchange on Friday. After pricing its stock at $68, Alibaba surged high on the opening day with its price soaring to $92.70, which gave the company a valuation of about $228.5 billion.

In terms of market value, Alibaba has become the fourth biggest high-tech company after Apple, Google and Microsoft, and the second biggest Internet-based company in the world.

This IPO, now the biggest ever, has become a landmark in the global history of Internet development. Showing up on the international stage as a world class corporation, Alibaba reveals new business models and ideas of Chinese style.

Alibaba's IPO signals the start of a Chinese era in the global Internet. From 2005 to 2014, the population of Net users has increased dramatically and reached 3 billion worldwide.

Chinese Internet-based companies, starting from scratch, have grown to be leaders in the Internet community, engaging in a close competition with the US.

It is the trend of the age that keeps changing the world landscape, and customers are the basic forces to transform the situations of competition. The US remains dominant in most aspects. But after this experience, China will get the baton and take the lead.

So far, the average rate of Internet use in developed countries has surpassed 80 percent. They used their language advantages, high level of development and values to preside over the process in which the world Internet population has hit 3 billion.

However, in the next process to incorporate the other 3 billion people into the Internet community, developing countries will become the focus. China's new Net users in the countryside can serve as the best example.

In this process, these Silicon Valley-based CEOs and product managers will find it difficult to master their user experience and habits.

Instead, China's local enterprises such as Tencent and Alibaba will have more opportunities to acquire leadership in the new round of competition.

It is only a matter of time for the development of the Chinese Internet to surpass that of its US counterpart.

Alibaba's IPO has unveiled the competition between China and the US in cyberspace. Although the US still gains an upper hand in the contest, China is catching up with it. And as long as China employs appropriate strategies, it will go beyond the US in many terms. In the future, China and the US will coexist in a mutually competitive and cooperative scenario.

Alibaba's success in IPO signals that Chinese Internet-based enterprises are getting more involved in globalization. The Internet has changed China, and it is time for China to change the Internet.