World’s largest e-commerce company Alibaba has defied odds yet again by netting a healthy profit for the second quarter of 2015. Considering a down slope trend that affected the market, it was expected that the Chinese web store might register a substantial fall in profits.
But as the Q2 results of the company reveal, it has done the opposite by registering a 32 percent increased in revenue on year-on-year basis. Alibaba has grossed $3.488 billion in revenue, crossing the $3.39 Billion figure estimated by analysts, by a rather healthy margin.
The company itself announced last month that sales were heading down the slope, but surprisingly still managed to register a 28 percent increase in Gross Merchant Volume (GMV) to reach $112 billion.
Although China happens to be the largest market for smartphone, Alibaba’s makes more revenue through the sale of desktop computer than the smartphone.
With mobile penetration on the rise in China, Alibaba is hoping to cash in on the growing sector. Though it may not have generated as much revenue as the desktop computer, Mobile devices still account for a large chunk of Alibaba’s profits. The segment accounted for 62 percent of Alibaba’s GMV, which is a hefty sum of $1.65 billion, registering a 183 percent growth from last year.
Not only are its revenues staggering, but also its user base. Alibaba currently has an active user base of 386 million, which has increased from last year’s telly of 367 million.
Coming to the mobile devices, Alibaba has over 346 million active users. The rise has been equally staggering with a 59 percent increase in user base from last year.
These numbers also help Alibaba to grow its foot print. The company had been investing a small share of its profits to acquire and invest in startups. It has also been investing in the cloud platform as evident from its recent investment of $1 billion into its Aliyun cloud business. Alibaba has also ventured into artificial intelligence service, and has also set up base in Singapore.
Speaking of the growth, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang stated
We continued our efforts to drive healthy GMV growth, deliver an unparalleled consumer experience and help quality merchants do business on our platform. We are winning in mobile and remain focused on our top strategic priorities, including internationalization, expanding our ecosystem from cities to villages, and building a world-class cloud computing business.
