China's richest man wants to see his company in the ranks of the world's richest countries.

Jack Ma, chairman and founder of retail giant Alibaba, spoke before investors last week last in Hangzhou, telling them that he foresees Alibaba's 2020 revenue equalling the world's fifth largest economy, that of Great Britain.

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To achieve that goal, Ma underscores the need to double the company's revenue from last year, which was over 3 trillion yuan ($463 billion). Aside from e-commerce, Ma also wants Alibaba to see growth in its cloud computing and big data unit, Aliyun.

Ma explains that Alibaba "is not [just] a retail business," but also a data business "that is why it explores in collecting consumer data."

Ma, nevertheless, is still not sure how to generate higher revenue from data. But he foresees that, in the future, data will be a key player in every person's life.

Ma also told investors not to be to quick to evaluate Alibaba based on its gross merchandise volume (GMV). He considers this factor to be irrelevant.

He said that in the past he was having problems with investor capitalists because they kept asking about Alibaba's page views, which were then the business model. After page views became irrelevant, he was asked about the company's click rate, then followed the GMV in 2005.

"We started giving something called GMV that we learned from eBay," he said. Investors asked for it, so the Ma "gave it to them and it became standard." However, Ma knows that GMV is not the only basis in determining the company's value.

Ma also expressed his plan of expanding Alibaba's operations outside China so it can cater to over 2 billion people by 2020. Alibaba already has its eyes on nearby countries, and it has already poured money into such e-commerce sites as Lazada and Paytm.

Note: As of June 21, 2016, US$1 is worth approximately 6.58 Yuan. 

TagsAlibaba, china, Jack Ma