Alibaba Group Holding priced its initial public offering at $68 a share, the top end of the expected range, raising $21.8 billion on Thursday, in the latest sign of strong investor appetite for the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut.

At that price, the IPO, one of the largest ever, would give Alibaba a market valuation of $167.6 billion, surpassing American corporate icons from Walt Disney Co. to Boeing Co.

The offering also vaults it atop U.S. e-commerce rivals like Amazon and eBay and gives it more financial firepower to expand in the United States and other markets.