Alibaba quarter revenue growth than expected
China’s shoppers defiedthe country’s economicslowdown, boosting ecommerce group Alibaba to abetterthan expected 39 per cent year-on-year rise inrevenues for the past quarter.
That rate of growth was the highest of thepast fourquarters, the company said, while mobile revenuesrose 149 per centyear on year to Rmb13.1bn($2bn). Quarterly revenues rose to Rmb24.2bn, beatingmarket expectations, while annual activebuyers on the company’s retailmarketplaces increased to 423m, up 16m over the prior quarter.
“Chinese consumers have a healthy balance sheet and ability to spend,”Joe Tsai,the company’sexecutive vice-chairman, told a press conference yesterday.
Economic growth in the first quarter ofthis year slipped to 6.7 per cent in China, well within thegovernment’s targetrange but still the slowest rate of gross domestic product growth sincethedepths of the global financial crisis in 2009.
Alibaba’s revenue growth was faster thanthe 32 per cent rise of the December quarter as grossmerchandise value (GMV)sold on its retail platforms such as Taobao and Tmall rose 24 percent year onyear to Rmb742bn during the March quarter. Mobile GMV accounted for 73 percentof the total compared with 51 per cent a year earlier.
“In the last six to 12 weeks Alibaba have been doing very well onmobile,”said Shaun Rein, ofChina Market Research group in Shanghai.
“I expect Alibaba to continue to do very well because consumerconfidence is still strong—salaries went up after lunar new year and there weren’t masslay-offs,”he added.
“And people want to buy from overseas because they trust thoseproducts more.”
Alibaba has about 80 per cent market sharein online retail in China and is successful in cross-border commerce.