China’s Alibaba is forecasting annual revenue growth of 45 to 49 per cent this year, a target that exceeds analysts’ estimates by 10 percentage points and elicited gasps of “wow” and loud clapping from investors at the ecommerce group’s Hangzhou headquarters.

Analysts had been expecting revenues this year to come in at $31.42bn, according to Bloomberg. Alibaba’s forecast implies sales of up to $34.3bn in the year to the end of March.

The bullish call highlights the rise of Alibaba, founded by former teacher — and now China’s richest man — Jack Ma. The ecommerce group has spawned an entire ecosystem comprising logistics, payment and cloud data centres which has made the company, along with fellow tech titans Baidu and Tencent, a big part of daily life in China.