Short and medium term worries about the slowdown in China

"The slowdown in the Chinese economy will make it very difficult for Alibaba to succeed in the short and medium term," said Gil Luria, director of research at D.A. Davidson, told CNBC. "China has not yet experienced a significant economic cycle over the past 30 years, which means that it's very difficult to predict the outcome of the current downturn."

He explained that Chinese consumers have experienced "a long period of increased consumption" and that it is possible that the economic downturn is noticeable.

For months, government data from Beijing indicated that the Chinese economy was slowing, including last Friday's trading data much weaker than expected.

Nevertheless, domestic consumption remains relatively strong in China for the moment. In the last three months of 2018, Alibaba's total revenue has grown by 41% in one year, reaching 117.28 billion yuan (more than $ 17 billion) and core business revenue has increased by 40% to just under $ 15 billion. Singles Day – the 24-hour shopping event – Alibaba achieved a turnover of more than $ 30.8 billion.

Alibaba's executive vice president, Joseph Tsai, said in the latest call for results that the company was confident that e-commerce growth and digitalization of the retail business would continue to outpace the Chinese economy in his outfit. He also raised the potential problems related to trade tensions between the United States and China and explained that Alibaba's exposure to "tangible effects of tariffs" is low, domestic consumption and processing companies being the main drivers of growth of Alibaba's leading companies.

Nevertheless, Alibaba faces fierce competition in the Chinese domestic market, with the penetration rate of e-commerce being high in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. This is why the company is growing in lower-tier cities or even in rural areas where, according to analysts, online shopping is still lagging for at least three to five years.

In its latest quarterly report, Alibaba said that about 70 percent of new e-commerce users came from lower-tier cities.

"It takes time and is expensive," CNBC analyst Danny Law, a Hong Kong-based brokerage analyst at Guotai Junan, told CNBC about the process of acquiring new users. He added that e-commerce players are also trying to leverage the value of existing customers by encouraging them to spend more and more frequently.