Scalper1 News
China e-commerce giant Alibaba ( BABA ) turned in a quarterly earnings report early Thursday that largely eased concerns of slowing performance, despite a sluggish Chinese economy. Alibaba reported revenue of $3.75 billion for its fiscal Q4 ended March 31, beating the Wall Street consensus of $3.58 billion. Sales rose 39% in local currency year over year, the company’s highest growth rate in the past four quarters. Earnings per share minus items rose 88% to 33 cents, but that was far below the consensus of 55 cents. Costs associated with new businesses initiatives and rising logistics and order-fulfillment costs weighed on the company. Still, Alibaba stock was up nearly 4% in early trading in the stock market today , near 79. The stock is up 35% from a seven-month low of 59.25 touched on Feb. 9. Alibaba credited the revenue beat to strong growth in mobile users, active buyers and transactions on its China e-commerce platforms. “Our focus on long-term strategic priorities — globalization, rural expansion, building a world-class cloud computing business and creating a comprehensive media and entertainment platform — has laid a strong foundation for future growth,” Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said in the earnings release. Alibaba competes with JD.com ( JD ), Baidu ( BIDU ) and Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY ) in various segments of China’s Internet economy. JD is China’s largest online direct-sales retailer, Tencent dominates in messaging and gaming, and Baidu is China’s search leader. The four are the largest Internet companies in China and have been investing aggressively in new areas to spur growth. JD is scheduled to report earnings before the market open on May 9. Alibaba reported gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $115 billion, slightly edging the consensus of $112 billion and up 24% year over year. Transactions through mobile devices accounted for 73% of GMV volume. It reported annual active buyers of 423 million, up 16 million from the prior quarter and up 21% year over year. Monthly mobile active users reached 410 million, an increase of 17 million from the prior quarter and up 42% year over year. Alibaba’s cloud computing and Internet infrastructure business continued its rapid expansion, with revenue jumping 175% year over year to $165 million. That’s above the 126% growth achieved in the prior quarter. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News