Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. finally carried out its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Thursday and sets the price of its stocks at US$68 apiece.

The price, which was at the high end of the company's range of $66 to $68, will raise at least $22 billion for Alibaba, making it the largest IPO ever on the United States stock market.

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At $68 per share, it will also give the company an overall market value of $168 billion, which is bigger than that of eBay at $65 billion and Amazon at $150 billion.

Beginning September 19, the stock is to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the trading abbreviation "BABA."

The Chinese company is initially offering more than 320 million shares, of which about 123 million will be fresh issued, while the remaining will be sold by current shareholders.

At present, Japan-based SoftBank, which holds a 34 percent stake in the Chinese e-commerce group, is the largest shareholder of Alibaba.

SoftBank said it will not dispose of any of its Alibaba shares, but after the IPO, its stake will be lowered to 32.4 percent.

Another biggest investor of Alibaba is Yahoo, which controls 22.4 percent of the Chinese company.

Yahoo said it intends to sell a total of 121.7 million of its Alibaba shares or a 4.9 percent stake.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, who holds an 8.8 percent stake in the company, is selling 12.7 million shares or 0.5 percent stake.

Joseph Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba, is planning to dispose of a 0.2 percent stake that equals to 4.3 million shares.

Alibaba Group owns three of China's popular online shopping destinations namely Taobao, Tmall, and Juhuasuan.

Last year, the three online marketplaces had generated a combined Gross Merchandise Volume (GVM) of US$296 billion.

Aside from the three retail marketplaces, Alibaba also operates the Alibaba.com, which is China's largest online wholesale marketplace.

The Chinese e-commerce group reportedly accounts for about 80 percent of all online retail sales in China.

Meanwhile, analysts said that investors stampeded to Alibaba's IPO because they clamor for shares that will give them access to a large private company for the first time.

They further noted that investors also believed that Alibaba is a highly profitable Chinese company - wherein shares could trade well - since it is a combination of eBay and Amazon.

For his part, James Gellert, chief executive of analyst Rapid Ratings, said in the Guardian news that the IPO would prepare the stage for the full emergence of a new tech powerhouse.

Gellert further noted that the share sale would also give Alibaba "a boatload of cash" to invest in growth.

He said the Chinese e-commerce group "is already by many measures a global company and will soon be very much more so."

TagsAlibaba IPO, BABA