Alibaba Group Holding (BABA.N): Assessing the Official Release of Qwen3.8-Max & Read-Through From DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731

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Alibaba Group Holding (BABA.N): Assessing the Official Release of Qwen3.8-Max & Read-Through From DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731

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03 Aug 2026 05:02:59 ET │ 11 pages

Alibaba Group Holding (BABA.N)

Assessing the Official Release of Qwen3.8-Max & Read-Through From

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731

CITI'S TAKE Buy

Price (31 Jul 26 16:00) US$122.25 We believe Alibaba's recent strong share price performance likely reflects

Target price US$192.00 positive cloud revenue read-throughs from AWS and Azure (which aligns

with our expectation of AliCloud revs to accelerate to 45% yoy in Expected share price return 57.1%

FY1Q27E), along with the significantly improved benchmark scores of the Expected dividend yield 1.6%

new Qwen3.8-Max model (released Aug 3). As noted previously, rapid Expected total return 58.7%

iteration of AI models, as seen with recent releases (DeepSeek-V4-Flash- Market Cap US$293,041M

0731 and Kimi K3), is fostering a "model-agnostic" environment where

enterprises adopt multi-model strategies, choosing the best model and

price for each task. This trend reduces the defensibility of any single

model, shifting competitive focus to the platforms and infrastructure that Alicia Yap, CFAAC

manage them. We believe long-term success will require immense +852-2501-2773

resources and a loyal customer base. Consequently, companies with full- alicia.yap@citi.com

stack capabilities, from chips and cloud infrastructure to models and Nelson Cheung

applications, like Alibaba, are better positioned to lead, in our view. We nelson.cheung@citi.com

reiterate our Buy rating and TP of US$192.

Brian Gong

brian.gong@citi.com

Qwen3.8-Max official release - On Aug 3, Alibaba officially released Qwen3.8-Max

Vicky Wei, CFAwhich represents the strongest model within Qwen's model families. Based on