Alibaba shares surge in their NY stock market debut

Alibaba's shares opened significantly above their initial price on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Friday, a sign of the excitement surrounding the Chinese internet giant.

Shares in the company made their debut in the US at $92.70 (£57), after being priced at $68 late on Thursday.

More than 100 million shares were traded in the minutes after the stock was launched - more than Twitter.

Earlier in the morning, founder and chairman Jack Ma rang the opening bell.

The NYSE was festooned with the orange and white logos of the company to herald its arrival on public markets.

The company raised nearly $21.8bn in its share sale, indicating strong investor appetite for China's e-commerce giant.

In opening at $92.70 per share, Alibaba is now valued at $227bn - making it significantly larger than Amazon and Facebook.

If Alibaba's bankers decide to take up an option in which they can purchase 48 million shares themselves, then Alibaba's launch will have raised nearly $25bn - breaking the previous $22.1bn record set by China's Agricultural Bank in 2010.

A way in

Alibaba operates a series of online marketplaces in China and elsewhere, handling more transactions than Amazon and eBay combined.

It is responsible for more than 80% of online e-commerce in China.

Alibaba's share sale is being viewed as a way to invest in e-commerce growth in China.

Already, the country is home to the largest population of internet users on the planet - and most estimates say that only half of China's 1.3 billion residents have signed online.

That is why investors have been angling for some time to get a piece of Alibaba - long the market leader in e-commerce in China.