INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Tencent had an unexpected miss this monthand Twitter and Facebook are grappling with concerns, but Chinese rival Alibaba experienced no such
issue today as it beat analyst expectation after clocking 61 percent annual revenue growth.
The Chinese e-commerce giant reported total
sales of80.92 billion RMB ($12.2 billion) for its Q1 2019, fractionally beating Bloomberg estimate of 80.88 billion RMB
The firm record a net profit of8.7 billion RMB ($1.3 billion) for the period, which was down 41 percent on account of costs around recent
fundraising for Ant Financial.
Diluted earnings per share of3.30 RMB was down 42 percent annually but still ahead of Bloomberg project of
The market has taken that as good news and shares are trading up three percent in the pre-market.
Alibaba core e-commerce business is its
most lucrative and revenue in Q1 rose 61 percent annually to hit69.2 billion RMB ($10.5 billion), while growth for it cloud computing
business continues to impressive albeit at a slowing rate as the unit grows up
Alibaba Cloud recorded total sales of 4.7 billion RMB ($710 million) but a year-on-year growth rate of 93 percent is down slightly on103
percent in the previous quarter.
Also in the last quarter, Alibaba took up an option to acquire one-third of Ant Financial, its financial
services business that tipped to go public as soon as next year
The deal hasn''t closed yet, but when it does it will mean an end to&royalty and technology service fees& that Alibaba had earned from a
previous agreement with Ant
Ant is valued at over $100 billion and some analyst estimates that the quarterly fees paid to Alibaba were in the region ofone billion RMB,
or roughly $160 million.
Looking at customer numbers, Alibaba said its active customer base in China grew to576 million — an increase of
100 million per year and 24 million on the last quarter — while monthly active users reached 634 million, up 20 percent year-on-year and
three percent sequentially.
The company doesn''t give international user numbers, but it said e-commerce revenue from outside of China grew
64 percent to reach 4.3 billion RMB, or $652 million.
Beyond e-commerce, Alibaba confirmed media reports that it has combined its Koubei
local services platform with its newly-acquired Ele.me business
The entity has raised over $3 billion in new financing from Alibaba, Softbank and others, Alibaba confirmed, as it continues to compete with
Meituan — the on-demand platform that is preparing to go public in Hong Kong.
There more on that story at the link below.
Alibaba
confirms it raised $3B for its newly consolidated local services business
