Alibaba in America? Don't Bet on It.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., already the largest Chinese company by market capitalization, is nothing if not ambitious. Its chief financial officer, Maggie Wu, recently told investors she expects revenue to increase by up to 49 percent next year, a staggering prospect. But perhaps more staggering is how Alibaba hopes to get there: In part, by tapping the U.S. market.

By any measure, Alibaba dominates online retail in China. Through its subsidiary TMall, it commands more than twice the market share of its largest competitor, JD.com, with 56 percent of all Chinese e-commerce. In splashing out on more than $21 billion in strategic asset acquisitions, Chief Executive Officer Jack Ma has humbly declared Alibaba no longer a company but an "economy." Having branched out into cloud computing, electronic payments, news media and films, he may have a point.