Alibaba profits soar
May 5, 2016
Alibaba's quarterly revenue surged to 24.18 billion yen ($3.75 billion, 3.25 billion euros) in the first three months of 2016, a 39 percent over the same period last year, the company said on Thursday.
Alibaba's chief financial officer, Maggie Wu, said the strong results reflected the "unique strength of our core e-commerce business despite challenging economic conditions." The last quarter of the company's fiscal year took place from January to March of this year.
For the full financial year, China's largest online retailer booked net income of $11.08 billion - an increase of 196 percent - or almost tripling - over 2015. Doing so, it bucked a broader trend of slowing economic growth in the world's second-largest economy.
Alibaba also seemed to be fending off growing competition from other online retailers, maintaining its claim on 90 percent of the consumer-to-consumer market and more than half of the business-to-consumer market.
cjc/kd (AFP, Reuters)