Watch out, Facebook, you've got company in the $200 billion club.

After a two-hour delay on Friday morning, Alibaba stock began trading at $92.70 a share, well above its IPO price of $68 a share, giving the company a market cap of nearly $230 billion. That puts Alibaba value significantly above Amazon's market valuation, a company it's often compared to, and on par with Facebook.

Alibaba raised $21.8 billion from its public offering, making it the largest U.S. IPO of all time and further establishing the company as a giant on the world stage. The company is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock ticker "BABA."

Alibaba's market cap is larger than all tech companies, except for Apple, Google and Microsoft Image: FactSet

Jack Ma, the founder behind the Chinese ecommerce giant, flashed the thumbs up sign to onlookers as he entered the historic stock exchange to kick off the first day of trading for his company. Once inside the exchange, Ma took pictures with reporters and talked up his long, improbable journey from English teacher to the richest man in China, which started with his discovering the Internet in Seattle nearly 20 years ago.

At one point, Ma exhibited some of his characteristic quirkiness by telling CNBC that his hero is Forrest Gump. "The hero I had was Forrest Gump," Ma said in the interview, to the shock of his interviewers, one of whom asked if Ma knew Gump was a fictional character. "I really like that guy," Ma continued. "I've been watching that movie for about 10 times. Every time when I'm frustrated, I watch the movie. And I watched movie before I came here."

However, when it came time to ring the bell to kick off the trading day, Ma decided to watch from the sidelines. Instead, a group of eight customers rang the bell, highlighting Alibaba's focus on the customer.

"Who are the people we should be thankful? We say we thank the customers. We thank the young - it's the people. It's not us," Ma told Bloomberg TV on Friday. "So that's why we put the young people there and the customers because we believe after 15 years the purpose of working so hard is that we want to make these people successful because when they're successful our success is a result."

Over the years, Ma has repeatedly emphasized that it's the customers who come first, followed by employees and only then shareholders.

"I have said on numerous occasions that we will put 'customers first, employees second and shareholders third,'" Ma wrote in a letter to investors, including with Alibaba's IPO paperwork. "I can see that investors who hear this for the first time may find it a bit hard to understand. Let me be clear: as fiduciaries of the company, we believe that the only way for Alibaba to create long-term value for shareholders is to create sustainable value for customers. So customers must come first."

#AlibabaIPO rings opening bell with some customers instead of Jack Ma #NYSE pic.twitter.com/XOno91j4wd — Francisco SG (@MrFranciscoSG) September 19, 2014

Alibaba's $21.8 billion public offering was far more than the $16 billion that Facebook raised and topped Visa's $17.8 billion IPO, which previously held the title of biggest in U.S. history.

The company is expected to use some of the proceeds from its IPO to fuel a global expansion into the United States and Europe. The public offering will also provide a windfall to Yahoo, which has a 22.4% stake in the company thanks to a $1 billion investment in 2005. That will provide Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer with additional resources for big acquisitions.

Ma founded Alibaba with 18 friends in his one-bedroom apartment in 1999. His goal was to use the Internet to change China and help small businesses in the country connect with markets abroad. Along the way, he butted heads with giants like eBay and was repeatedly called crazy for his vision to build a global ecommerce company.

Alibaba is now the largest ecommerce service in China with 279 million active buyers and $2.54 billion in revenue during the June quarter of this year.

"Well we had a big dinner last night," Ma told Bloomberg TV when asked how he and his cofounders celebrated the IPO. "And everybody cried."

UPDATE 4:01 pm ET Friday: Alibaba stock ended the day at more than $93 a share, a gain of about 38% from its IPO price. The company's market valuation is now north of $230 billion.

Alibaba's board chairman Jack Ma (L, front) thumbs up as Alibaba begins trading on New York Stock Exchange pic.twitter.com/IrHaEPuijK — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) September 19, 2014

#Alibaba Founder & Executive Chairman Jack Ma, Executive Vice-Chairman Joe Tsai & CEO Jonathan Lu await #FirstTrade. pic.twitter.com/n4TswXL1CP — NYSE (@nyse) September 19, 2014

Thank you, #Alibaba: The Tao Doll is a sign of respect and will be permanently displayed @NYSE http://t.co/mV0cvKcRyZ pic.twitter.com/UlVwKAH6L1 — NYSE (@nyse) September 18, 2014