A tenfold increase in mobile revenue and a more than doubling of monthly active mobile users helped Alibaba post a sharp increase in both revenue and earnings in Q3, its first quarterly results as a public company.
The company’s total revenue increased 53.7 per cent to CNY16.8 billion ($2.74 billion), with mobile revenue now accounting for 22 per cent of the total.
It added 29 million monthly active users on mobile during the quarter and now has 217 million mobile MAUs (up from 91 million a year ago), and 35.8 per cent of its gross merchandising value (GMV) was done on mobile, up from 14.7 per cent a year ago and 32.8 per cent in Q2 2014.
Alibaba’s (non-GAAP) EBITDA increased 30.6 per cent to CNY8.49 billion ($1.38 billion), but its net income fell 38.6 per cent to CNY3 billion because of higher share-based compensation expenses and amortization of intangible assets.
EBITDA margin dropped from 59.4 per cent a year ago to 50.5 per cent due to a number of acquisitions – ACWeb and AutoNavi — and investment in new business areas. Its product development expenses rose mainly because of an increase in headcount and were 15.3 per cent of revenue compared to 10.7 per cent in Q3 last year.
Alibaba is China’s largest e-commerce company and is valued at more than $240 billion after its IPO in the US in September.
The total number of active buyers on its China retail marketplaces jumped 52 per cent to 307 million from Q3 2013. Its overall GMV was up 48.7 per cent to CNY555.7 billion from a year ago, with transactions on Taobao Marketplace representing 68 per cent of the activity. Taobao’s GMV rose 38 per cent in the quarter. GMV at Tmall, which accounted for 32 per cent of the company’s total, grew 78 per cent.
The company’s China e-commerce retail business accounted for 76 per cent of its total revenue. Revenue from its international retail business (AliExpress) almost doubled to CNY419 million.
Its China wholesale business increased 39 per cent in the quarter to CNY790 million while international wholesale commerce grew 24 per cent to CNY1.19 billion.
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