--- title: "Alibaba, NetEase, J&T Express get 'Buy' calls; Nomura flags China growth concerns, AI-cloud upside" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/296562801.md" description: "Nomura upgraded Sunway Healthcare to 'Buy' and retained 'Buy' ratings on Alibaba, NetEase, and J&T Express. The brokerage highlighted Alibaba's accelerating cloud growth, NetEase's margin expansion, and J&T Express's robust revenue beats. However, Nomura flagged persistent China growth concerns with soft PMI data and lowered Q3 GDP forecasts, while noting strong Malaysian exports and limited GDP impact from Thailand's data-center FDI boom." datetime: "2026-08-21T03:06:51.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/296562801.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296562801.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/296562801.md) generator: "portal-rs" --- # Alibaba, NetEase, J&T Express get 'Buy' calls; Nomura flags China growth concerns, AI-cloud upside Nomura, in its latest Asia ex-Japan Daily Research Summary on Friday, highlighted a brighter outlook for Alibaba's AI and cloud business, stronger-than-expected operating performance at NetEase and J&T Express, and an upgrade on Sunway Healthcare. The brokerage also flagged sustained growth concerns in China, strong Malaysian exports and limited GDP spillovers from Thailand's data-centre-led FDI boom. Alibaba sees stronger AI, cloud outlook Alibaba's June-quarter revenue and adjusted EBITA were largely in line with market expectations, while non-GAAP net profit missed Bloomberg consensus mainly because tax expenses rose 44% y-y. But Nomura said the quarterly print was overshadowed by management's "more upbeat messages on the outlook for AI and Cloud". The brokerage said Alibaba's more mature businesses, particularly e-commerce, increasingly appear positioned as "cash-flow generators", with management expecting profitability to remain stable or improve for most non-AI businesses. The "most important incremental message", in Nomura's view, is that Cloud growth "has not yet peaked". External Cloud revenue growth accelerated to 45% y-y in the June quarter, marking the ninth consecutive quarter of acceleration. Management expects growth to exceed 50% in September and accelerate further in December and March. Nomura retains a 'Buy' rating on Alibaba with a target price of $178. NetEase operating beat driven by margin expansion NetEase delivered a "solid 2Q26 operating print", with operating profit rising 33% y-y to CNY12.1 billion, excluding the impact of higher tax expenses and investment loss of nearly CNY3 billion. Revenue of CNY30.1 billion rose 8% y-y and was 3% above Nomura's estimate, while operating profit beat the brokerage's estimate by 12% and Bloomberg consensus by 13%. The key positive was operating margin, which expanded 7.7 percentage points y-y to 40.2%, 3.1 percentage points above Nomura's estimate. The margin expansion was driven by "broad-based gross-margin improvement and particularly strong margin expansion in games as well as operating leverage". The main negative was non-GAAP net profit of CNY7.7 billion, down 19% y-y and below Nomura's estimate by 18% and consensus by 24%. Nomura retains 'Buy' on NetEase with a target price of $155. J&T Express 1H26 results beat J&T Express reported "robust 1H26 results", with total revenue rising 40% y-y to $7.7 billion, beating Bloomberg consensus and Nomura's estimates by 7% and 5%, respectively. Nomura attributed the revenue beat mainly to higher China revenue from better-than-expected average revenue per parcel amid a "more rational competition landscape" under the anti-involution policy, and stronger Southeast Asia revenue due to a slower-than-anticipated decline in ARPP. SEA revenue increased 54% y-y to $3 billion, driven by 71% parcel-volume growth, taking market share up 5.3 percentage points y-y to 38.1%. In China, revenue rose 22% y-y to $3.8 billion, helped by 10% parcel-volume growth and 12% ARPP growth. Nomura retains 'Buy' on J&T Express with a target price of HKD14. Sunway Healthcare upgraded to 'Buy' Nomura upgraded Sunway Healthcare Holdings to 'Buy' from 'Neutral' and raised its target price to MYR2.50 from MYR1.80, citing "faster bed capacity ramp-up, strong occupancy rate, rising revenue intensity and cost control" as likely drivers of margin expansion. Second-quarter revenue rose 30% y-y, 8% above Nomura's expectations, while net profit jumped 89% y-y. Bed capacity increased 13% y-y, occupancy rose 6 percentage points to 73%, inpatient admissions grew 19% and revenue intensity increased 8%. Medical tourism revenue also grew 31% y-y. EBITDA increased 43% y-y on stronger operating performance and continued cost control, while net profit came in 32% above Nomura's estimate and above Bloomberg consensus. Nomura identified the "ramp-up of existing facilities, medical tourism and new hospitals" as catalysts. China growth concerns persist Nomura said China's Emerging Industries PMI remained soft at 47.8 in August, unchanged from July and weaker than seasonal patterns. In view of the "lackluster EPMI and still-subdued policy support", the brokerage expects the official manufacturing PMI to remain muted at 49.2 in August. Other high-frequency indicators also suggest that the slowdown may have continued. Passenger-car retail sales volume growth fell to -22% y-o-y during August 1-16 from -21% in July, while new-home sales by floor space in 20 major cities fell 3.1% y-o-y. Weekly container throughput growth also fell to -3.8% y-o-y, "boding poorly for exports". Nomura recently lowered its Q3 real GDP growth forecast to 4.3% y-o-y from 4.5% and expects "policy efforts to speed up in September and October". Malaysia exports remain strong Malaysia's export growth eased to 38% y-o-y in July from 45.5% in June but remained "still-strong", led by electronics. Import growth also moderated, resulting in a wider goods trade surplus. The July export growth was above the 35% consensus forecast and closer to Nomura's 39.2% estimate. The brokerage maintains its above-consensus 2026 GDP growth forecast of 5.6%, supported by "robust domestic demand and a sustained global tech uptrend". Thailand data-centre FDI may have limited GDP impact Thailand's FDI approvals reached a record high in the second quarter, rising 256% y-o-y to THB929 billion. However, Nomura said the concentration of inflows in data centres, particularly from China, suggests these investments will provide a "limited boost to GDP growth". Data centres are likely to have limited spillovers to the domestic economy because they rely heavily on imported equipment, while the boost to construction activity is temporary. Nomura estimates these investments contributed only 0.3 percentage points to actual GDP growth of 2.4% y-o-y in H1 2026. The brokerage reiterates its 2026 and 2027 GDP growth forecasts of 1.8% and 2%, respectively. ### Related Stocks - [NTES.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/NTES.US.md) - [09999.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/09999.HK.md) - [01519.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/01519.HK.md) - [09988.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/09988.HK.md) - [BABA.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BABA.US.md) - [8604.JP](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/8604.JP.md) - [NMR.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/NMR.US.md) - [89988.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/89988.HK.md) - [HBBD.SG](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/HBBD.SG.md) ## Related News & Research - [J&T Global Express files HKEX next-day disclosure return on share buyback at HKD 9.46 each](https://longbridge.com/en/news/298584028.md) - [J&T Global Express files HKEX next-day return disclosing share buyback at HKD 9.64 each](https://longbridge.com/en/news/298298012.md) - [An NEA partner says not every AI task needs frontier intelligence](https://longbridge.com/en/news/298434703.md) - [Mistral bets enterprise AI will be about control, not just intelligence](https://longbridge.com/en/news/298750617.md) - [3 forgotten AI stocks that should rebound from their corrections](https://longbridge.com/en/news/298812719.md) --- > **Disclaimer: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.**