Forget Amazon: These 3 Global E-Commerce Giants Are Trading at Bargain Prices

Photo of Trey Thoelcke
By Trey Thoelcke Published

Quick Read

  • Alibaba (BABA) trades at 15x forward P/E and 0.32 price-to-sales despite Q3 cloud revenue growing 36% YoY and AI product revenue posting its 10th consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth. MercadoLibre (MELI) delivered 28 consecutive quarters of 30%+ revenue growth with full-year 2025 revenue up 39% to $28.89B and operating cash flow up 53% to $12.12B, yet the stock is down 17.2% YTD. Sea Limited (SE) tripled net income to $1.61B in 2025 while revenue grew 36.4% to $22.94B, but trades near $81 against an analyst target of $140.71, down 36.9% YTD.

  • All three companies are experiencing deliberate reinvestment cycles that depress near-term earnings while their underlying e-commerce and fintech businesses compound at rates Amazon no longer achieves, creating a valuation disconnect between widely held expensive Amazon and these growth engines serving underpenetrated international markets.

  • If you're focused on picking the right stocks and ETFs you may be missing the bigger picture: retirement income. That is exactly what The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income was created to solve, and it's free today. Read more here
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Forget Amazon: These 3 Global E-Commerce Giants Are Trading at Bargain Prices

© MTStock Studio / E+ via Getty Images

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) continues to dominate financial headlines again, riding its cloud and AI narrative to a valuation that commands a premium most investors accept without question. But here is what the data shows about alternatives in the global e-commerce space.

The case against chasing Amazon at current prices is straightforward: you are paying a multiple that already prices in years of execution. With a market cap north of $2 trillion, the margin of error is thin and the crowded trade risk is real. Meanwhile, three global e-commerce platforms are sitting at valuations that imply the market has largely forgotten they exist. Even as their underlying businesses compound at rates Amazon hasn’t seen in years.

Alibaba: Misread, Oversold, and Building Something Real

Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) just reported Q3 FY2026 results, and the stock dropped 7.1% on earnings day. The headline numbers looked ugly: non-GAAP net income down 67% YoY and free cash flow down 71% YoY to $1.62 billion. Yet, that reaction misses what is actually happening. Alibaba is in a deliberate, aggressive investment cycle. Cloud Intelligence Group revenue grew 36% YoY, AI-related product revenue posted its 10th consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth, and the Qwen app crossed 300 million monthly active users.

The stock now trades at a forward P/E of roughly 15x with a price-to-sales ratio of just 0.32. Analyst consensus target sits at $198.99 against a current price of $124.90. The market is pricing in permanent impairment, but the data suggests a temporary investment trough.

MercadoLibre: Latin America’s Compounding Machine at a 17% Discount

MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) has delivered 28 consecutive quarters of revenue growth above 30%. Full-year 2025 revenue hit $28.89 billion, up 39% year-over-year. Operating cash flow reached $12.12 billion, up 53% YoY. The fintech segment alone grew 46% YoY, with a credit portfolio that nearly doubled to $12.5 billion.

The stock is down 17.2% year-to-date despite those numbers. The PEG ratio is 0.9, a figure that implies the market is not giving MercadoLibre credit for its growth rate. Latin American e-commerce penetration remains roughly half that of the U.S., UK, and China, meaning the runway ahead dwarfs what is already being executed. Mexico revenue grew 50% YoY in Q4, and Brazil’s grew 48%.

This is not a story that needs a turnaround, but one that needs patience.

Sea Limited: Tripled Net Income, Down 36% YTD

Sea Limited (NYSE: SE) is the most glaring disconnect of the three. Full-year 2025 net income grew 262.6% year-over-year to $1.61 billion. Revenue hit $22.94 billion, up 36.4% YoY. Operating cash flow grew 53.3% to $5.02 billion. The stock is down 36.9% year-to-date, trading near $81 against an analyst consensus target of $140.71.

The Q4 EPS miss that triggered a 16%+ post-earnings drop was driven by a deliberate expansion of the Monee loan book, which grew 80.4% YoY to $9.2 billion while maintaining a non-performing loan ratio of just 1.1%. Shopee serves approximately 400 million active buyers across 20 million sellers. The PEG ratio is 0.6. The market is treating a reinvestment cycle as a fundamental breakdown.

In the End

Amazon is a fine business. It is also one of the most widely held, most analyzed, and most expensively priced names in the world. The three names above are growing at comparable or faster rates, serving billions of consumers in underpenetrated geographies, and trading at fractions of that valuation. Investors researching global e-commerce alternatives to Amazon may find Alibaba, MercadoLibre, and Sea Limited worth examining given the valuation divergence.

 

Photo of Trey Thoelcke
About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

APA
APA Vol: 23,883,496
+$1.05
+2.76%
$39.11
Aon
AON Vol: 2,408,528
+$8.64
+2.73%
$325.63
TTD Vol: 24,213,212
+$0.60
+2.55%
$24.11
AJG Vol: 3,845,140
+$5.14
+2.45%
$214.82
PSKY Vol: 23,894,119
+$0.19
+2.12%
$9.15

Top Losing Stocks

SMCI Vol: 243,039,023
-$10.26
33.32%
$20.53
VST Vol: 11,108,700
-$21.35
12.76%
$146.02
CEG Vol: 6,237,209
-$34.48
10.90%
$281.99
MOS Vol: 21,771,381
-$2.61
9.96%
$23.59
NRG Vol: 4,160,964
-$15.60
9.67%
$145.80