What's Going On With Alibaba Stock Wednesday?

Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA faces tough competition from PDD Holdings Inc PDD in China's e-commerce battle for the biggest shopping event. At the same time, Alibaba remains committed to its artificial intelligence endeavors.

PDD triumphed with robust sales as it won market share at home and among U.S. consumers.

The upcoming primary driver for the industry is the Singles' Day shopping extravaganza, which spans several weeks and peaks on November 11, focusing on online retail activities, Bloomberg reports.

PDD's international platform Temu is making waves in global e-commerce with its aggressive pricing strategy, drawing attention with Super Bowl ads and expanding rapidly into dozens of countries. 

In China, PDD is engaging in competitive Singles' Day sales with cashback offers and discounts, aiming to attract more customers to its platform. Analysts from Citigroup and Bloomberg Intelligence are optimistic about PDD's growth.

Meanwhile, Alibaba is transforming into an "open technology platform," focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize thousands of industries, according to new CEO Eddie Wu Yongming. 

At the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Wu described Alibaba's shift toward providing AI infrastructure services, SCMP reports. 

Despite the current revenue and profit dominance of Alibaba's e-commerce platforms, Taobao and Tmall Wu emphasized AI as the company's future cornerstone. 

This strategic pivot aligns with recent remarks by Alibaba's co-founder and new chairman, Joe Tsai, who stressed the importance of Alibaba Cloud in making AI an essential productivity tool, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. 

Wu envisions a future where AI assistants become integral to work, life, and education, with every enterprise employing AI to stay competitive.

Price Action: BABA shares traded lower by 0.89% at $84.65 premarket on the last check Wednesday.