Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) delivered better than expected numbers for the third quarter. The company’s financial results gained from some solid metrics like its retail marketplace revenue and the growing usage of mobile shopping. Aside from this, the company also gained from its cloud computing, as well as Internet infrastructure business. The results indicated that China’s e-commerce business was growing at a rapid pace.
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Retail Business Growth
Alibaba reported that its net income jumped 108% to RMB 5.98 billion while adjusted net income increased 25% to RMB 13.12 billion this quarter. In US dollar terms, the company’s earnings came in at 76 cents a share while adjusted earnings were 99 cents a share. That was ten cents a share higher than Capital IQ expectations.
The e-commerce firm’s top line advanced 32% to $5.33 billion, which was higher than the $5.13 billion predicted by Capital IQ analysts. The most significant factor was that the company’s revenue from mobile stream jumped 192% on YoY basis. As a result, mobile revenue as a percentage of total revenue jumped to 65% from 30%. The company attributed the better revenue numbers to the continued rapid growth of its retail business. The gain also came from the monetization of its user activity in its marketplaces.
Retail Marketplace Revenue
Alibaba also reported growth in its retail marketplace revenue, which increased 35% to $4.43 billion while mobile revenue came in at $2.89 billion. The company said that active buyers on its retail marketplaces grew to 407 million on an annualized basis. Similarly, its mobile MAUs added 47 million this quarter to 393 million. The Chinese firm said that its cloud computing, as well as Internet infrastructure unit witnessed 126% YoY growth to $126 million while adjusted free cash flow was $3.66 billion at the end of the quarter.
Further, the gross merchandise value (GMV) of its retail marketplaces witnessed 23% growth to $149 billion. The interesting part was that mobile GMV represented 68% of that. Alibaba indicated that it would continue to invest in its tactical priorities.
