Alibaba reported another very strong set of results for its fiscal second quarter to end-September, with revenues jumping 40 percent from the year before to CNY 119.0 billion, the adjusted EBITDA going 39 percent higher to CNY 37.1 billion and the net profit attributable to shareholding leaping over 260 percent to CNY 72.5 billion or CNY 3.44 per share CEO Daniel Zhang said the company is now aiming to serve over 1 billion active customers per year by fiscal 2024.
At the company’s core e-commerce operations, revenues lifted to CNY 101.2 billion from 72.5 billion. The number of mobile monthly active users on its China retail marketplaces increased by 30 million from end June to 785 million. Annual active consumers on the Chinese sites advanced 19 percent from the year before to 693 million. Results here were helped by at user growth at Taobao, Alibaba’s largest e-commerce platform; success at Tmall; new retail initiatives such as grocery retail chain Freshippo; and a strong performance at Southeast Asian e-commerce platform Lazada. The adjusted EBITDA at the operations rose to CNY 38.6 billion from 29.8 billion. Alll other operations still sported an EBITDA loss.
At cloud computing, revenues went to CNY 9.3 billion from almost 5.7 billion, mainly pushed by increases in ARPU. As of August, well over half (59%) of companies listed in China were customers of Alibaba Cloud.
Revenue at Digital Media and Entertainment rose to CNY 7.3 billion from 5.9 billion. The company said it brought more paying subscribers to the Youku online video platform; average daily subscribers rose 47 percent year-on-year. Alibaba said it is also investing in original content production capability, and plans to narrow its EBITA losses through cost efficiencies and return on investment.
Regarding the company acquisition of NetEase’s import e-commerce platform Kaola, Alibaba said it sees great possibilities for user, revenue and costs synergies with a combined Tmall Global and Kaola businesses. The company also noted it became a 33 percent equity shareholder in Ant Financial in September, taking a one-off gain of CNY 69.2 billion in the quarter.
Looking at free cash flow, net cash provided by operating activities went up 51 percent to CNY 47.3 billion.
