New | Alibaba’s second-quarter revenue soars 55pc to 34.3 billion yuan, beating analysts’ forecasts
Revenue at the world’s largest e-commerce company jumps on strong online sales and cloud computing growth
Alibaba Group Holding’s second-quarter results beat analysts’ forecasts, bolstered by its growth in online shopping and a cloud computing business that is rapidly expanding internationally.
Revenue rose by a larger-than-expected 55 per cent to a record 34.3 billion yuan in the three months to September, the Hangzhou-based company said in a statement. That was higher than the median forecast of 33.9 billion yuan in a Bloomberg poll of analysts.
Its core commerce business, which comprises online retail marketplaces such as Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com, grew 41 per cent to 28.5 billion yuan.
The company generated 13.9 billion yuan in free cash flow in the quarter, it said.
“The core commerce business [provides] tremendous cash flow for us to make investments in important strategic areas,” Joseph Tsai Chung-hsin,executivevice-chairman of Alibaba, said in a conference call with analysts and journalists.
“We’re extremely patient when it comes to developing potentially high-impact initiatives. We focus on initiatives with long gestation periods. In our experience, the investment cycle for incubating businesses that eventually become massive value drivers could take seven to 10 years.”