NEW YORK, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese online entertainment platform Bilibili extended solid gains in the U.S. stock market, as Citigroup joined the rating group of the company's stock with expectations of high growth on Thursday, according to publicly listed information.
The U.S. top multinational investment bank rated Bilibili as "to buy," setting its price target to a high of 22 U.S. dollars, implying 24 percent increase. Shares of Bilibili rallied 3.66 percent to reach 18.41 dollars per share around the closing bell of the trading day.
A stock rating is normally accompanied with a target price issued by analysts or brokerage firms to help clients understand what is the fair price of a stock compared to its market value.
Hillman Chan, internet research analyst at Citigroup, said in a note to clients that he expected Bilibili's monthly active users to surge to 140 million in 3 years from the current 93 million.
Except Citigroup, U.S. leading investment banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley rate Bilibili as overweight and equal weight respectively.
Financial analysts normally use a three-tiered rating system to indicate the appeal of a certain stock, including overweight, equal weight and underweight. If a stock is recommended to be "overweight," the analyst believes the stock is better valued for money than others.
Other types of stock rating also indicate an evaluation of a stock's expected performance in a certain period, including buy, sell, hold, underperform and outperform.
First launched in June 2009 and officially named "Bilibili" in January 2010, Bilibili has become a leading online entertainment platform for young generations in China, featuring videos, live broadcasting and mobile games.
The online platform went public on the Nasdaq in March 2018. Later in December, Bilibili signed a cooperation deal with Taobao Marketplace, China's largest mobile commerce destination under Alibaba.
Bilibili and Taobao plan to co-develop a dynamic ecosystem to better connect content creators, merchandise and users on both platforms, so as to boost Alibaba's content-driven e-commerce and the commercialization of Bilibili's intellectual property assets.
In its latest earnings report for the third quarter of 2018, total net revenues rose 48 percent year over year to 157.1 million dollars, which the company attributed to big growth of new users and cooperation with internet heavyweights such as Tencent.
"Our growing library of diverse content continues to attract new members driving growth throughout our business," said Rui Chen, chairman of the board and CEO of Bilibili, in the quarterly report.
"In October, we have entered into a strategic collaboration with Tencent to extend our partnership in anime projects as well as to jointly operate more Tencent games," he said.
