Chinese operations assist Alibaba Q3 sales zoom 53.7%

10 Nov '14

3 min read

Mainly driven by the continuing rapid growth of its Chinese operations, revenue for the third quarter ended September 30, 2014 at Alibaba Group zoomed 53.7%, from a year earlier quarter.

Alibaba, which recently debuted the biggest global IPO in history, said its sales surged 53.7% to RMB16,829 million in the third quarter of 2014 from RMB10,950 million in the same quarter of 2013.

Alibaba attributed the increase to the continuing rapid growth of its China commerce retail business.

In the reporting quarter, the Chinese retail business mopped up RMB12,769 million or 75.9% of third quarter of 2014 total sales, up a massive 47.7%, year-on-year.

“The surge was mainly led by growth in online marketing services revenue and commission revenue in our Chinese operations,” Alibaba explains.

A hike in paying members and also a rise in average revenue from paying members, led to revenue from its China wholesale business rise significantly by 39.1%, from prior year quarter to RMB790 million.

International commerce retail business nearly doubled in the third quarter of 2014 by zooming to RMB419 million from RMB210 million in the same quarter of 2013, driven by rise in GMV transacted on AliExpress.

Sales from its international commerce wholesale business, however grew slower by 24% from a year ago to RMB1,198 million, which the ecommerce giant credited to increase in the number of paying members.

Not to be left behind, third quarter of 2014 cost of revenue, too skyrocketed to RMB5,596 million, or 33.3% of revenue, compared to RMB3,001 million, or 27.4% of revenue, in the same quarter of 2013.

“The increase was primarily due to rise in share-based compensation expense and also augmentation of co-location, bandwidth and depreciation expenses as a result of its investments in Alibaba Cloud Computing and its data platform,” Alibaba informs.

Hike in share-based compensation expense, also impacted SG&A which too rose to RMB1,960 million, or 11.6% of revenue versus RMB793 million, or 7.2% of revenue in the same quarter of 2013.

Non-GAAP EBITDA increased by 30.6% year-on-year to RMB8,493 million in the reporting quarter, while non-GAAP EBITDA margin stood at 50.5%, down from 59.4% in the September quarter of 2013 and from 54.4% in the June quarter of 2014.

Excluding the effects of share-based compensation expense, amortization of intangible assets and certain other items, non-GAAP net income in the quarter under review rose 15.5% to RMB6,808 million. (AR)

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