Sales jumped to 24.2 billion yuan ($3.7 billion) in the three months ended March, Alibaba (BABA) said. The total GMV in the quarter was CNY 742 billion, up 24 percent from a year earlier.
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Alibaba released its latest earnings report before opening bell this morning, posting adjusted earnings of 47 cents per share on $3.75 billion in revenue, representing a 39% year over year increase.
“Although growth at the global division picked up strongly, it is China that has underpinned the group’s success”, said Neil Saunders, chief of retail analysts Conlumino. Currently, this figure stands at 3 trillion yuan ($230 billion). Alibaba says mobile GMV now accounts for 73 per cent of the total, whereas this figure was 51 per cent during the same quarter in 2015.
The number of mobile monthly active users rose 42 per cent to 410 million.
US-listed shares in the business, founded by flamboyant entrepreneur Jack Ma, rose following the results for the fourth quarter to the end of March – despite a fall in underlying profit. In March we surpassed RMB3 trillion in annual GMV and our revenue for the year was over RMB100 billion. The International commerce wholesale business recorded a 16% increase in revenue, bringing it to $216 million.
Tsai said the company has also made some investments that are now producing fast growth in sectors such as cloud computing and mobile Internet services.
The company’s American Depository shares were up 3.5 per cent at US$78.48 (S$106.35) on Thursday. However, despite its recent billion acquisition of the Singaporean e-commerce startup Lazada, cross-border e-commerce is still not a significant part of Alibaba’s business.
In the quarter, Alibaba reported 423 million annual active buyers, up 21% from a year earlier.
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Alibaba said it repurchased and canceled 5.8 million shares for about $365 million in the fourth quarter.
