Mentions for the Chinese tech giant Alibaba were up 221% today, hitting a high of 19,207 mentions as the markets closed. Alibaba’s opened the day at $92.70 36% higher than the IPO price of $68 but that didn’t stop people from talking about it all day.
Although the company had an overall positive net sentiment (82.9% positive mentions vs 17.1% negative mentions) there were some objections and confusion around what the company does exactly. People on twitter voiced their complaints saying “Alibaba is too big. Seems sketchy” and “Alibaba gonna crash. Sooner or later. Overvalued. Overrated.”
Elsewhere industry leaders contemplated what the day meant for the future of market debuts. Jack Welch on twitter said “Alibaba successful IPO gives NYSE big marketing boost… Dagger in NASDAQ IPO future.”
About the only thing Alibaba wasn’t able to do today was dethrone the launch of the Iphone 6 in overall social media traffic. Apple’s latest phone managed to garner an incredible 1.1 million mentions in the same 24-hour period. One twitter user even commented “I am happy to trade Alibaba stock for an Iphone 6”
Come track the conversations live with Netbase Pulses of both the Iphone6 and the Aibaba IPO
Joe Russell is the Chief Financial Officer of NetBase Quid
