Revenue for the period climbed to 24.1bn yuan (£2.57bn), up from 17.4bn (£1.85bn) in the same period previous year – a 39% increase which was the strongest growth rate for the past four quarters.
Advertisement
Alibaba chief financial officer Maggie Wu attributed that hefty gain to a 21 per cent year-on-year increase in annual active buyers on the firm’s China online retail platforms, including Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com, to 423 million at the end of March.
Net income rose 85 percent to 5.3 billion yuan, just shy of the 5.4 billion-yuan average of estimates.
Analysts had projected CNY3.60 a share in adjusted earnings and CNY23.22 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters.
“Chinese consumers, with their balance sheets and ability to spend, will propel China’s shift from an export- and investment-led economy to a consumption-driven economy”, Joseph Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba Group, said in his analysis of the drivers of its growth.
Shares in the company added 4.9% premarket to $79.50. It indicates that their business is holding up well.
The Chinese e-commerce giant’s online platforms sold goods worth more than 3 trillion yuan in March for the first time, amid a struggling Chinese economy. For the full financial year ended in March, net income rocketed 196% to $11.08 billion.
Alibaba is celebrating a positive annual results, with revenues increasing 39 per cent year-on-year, bolstered by an increase in mobile commerce and accelerated growth for its B2B cloud computing and ecommerce business. It has also been seeking to expand outside its core e-commerce business, in sectors ranging from sports to entertainment. That effort to diversify the business comes as Alibaba is simultaneously trying to tap more of the 620 million Chinese who access the Internet from their smartphones and tablets.
In April, Alibaba also acquired a controlling stake in Southeast Asian online shopping platform Lazada for $1.0 billion to expand outside China.
Advertisement
Alibaba’s US-listed shares had fallen about 7 per cent this year through Wednesday’s close of US$75.82.
