Alibaba profits but revenue slows in 3Q
Alibaba Group has clocked a net profit of US$792 million in its fiscal third-quarter fueled by higher advertising fees, but its revenue growth slowed to 51 percent.
The largest e-commerce operator in China, where it owns Taobao and Tmall, Alibaba last year reported a net loss of US$246 million after it forked out a one-time payment of US$550 million as part of a US$7.6 billion deal to buy back its shares from Yahoo.
With a current 24 percent stake in the Chinese company, Yahoo revealed Alibaba's results as part of its fourth-quarter earnings report this week, according to Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
It noted that Alibaba's revenue for the quarter climbed 51 percent to US$1.78 billion, a drop from a 61 percent growth in the second quarter, but its revenue still outperformed some of its closest rivals. Tencent Holdings, for instance, clocked a 34 percent growth in its third-quarter revenue, while Amazon grew its numbers by 24 percent.
China's online shopping festival held on November 11, 2013, had boosted Alibaba's sales which saw Taobao and Tmall post record sales of 30 billion yuan (US$4.92 billion) in less than 22 hours on the day. Dubbed Cyber Monday in the country, the 1-day shopping frenzy generated record transactions of some US$5.8 billion.
Alibaba is prepping its IPO (Initial Public Offering), which analysts estimate could put the company's value at over US$100 billion.
The company has been investing efforts to expand its portfolio into the mobile and cloud space, as it looks to gain an upper hand on rival, Tencent. Early this month, it pledged to give the bulk of sales generated on its mobile games platform back to developers, keeping just 10 percent of sales proceeds.
It is also looking to grow its cloud business, Aliyun, with plans to set up data centers to support local enterprises as well as its international operations.