Confirming a recovery from the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in China, the Alibaba Group reported a 30 percent increase in overall revenues to 155.1 billion yuan renminbi (€19.9bn-$23.5bn) in the third quarter, leading to a rise of 28 percent in adjusted Ebitda to RMB 47.5 billion ($6.1bn-$7.2bn). The attributable net income jumped by 60 percent to RMB 28.8 billion (€3.7bn-$4.4bn).
The company said that the number of active consumers on its Chinese retail marketplaces, including Tmall, reached 757 million on a rolling 12-month basis through Sept. 30, with a quarterly increase of 15 million as compared to June 30. The gross merchandise volume (GMV) on Tmall rose by 21 percent, driven by fast-moving consumer goods, with the apparel category’s growth recovering to pre-epidemic levels.
The GMV on the Tmall Global marketplace, which is used by international brands and merchants, went up by 37 percent. Alibaba also reported a growth of 100 percent in the volume of orders collected by its Southeast Asian e-commerce platform, Lazada. Revenues from cloud computing rose by 60 percent.
Despite the strong results, the share price of Alibaba declined as Chinese regulators suspended the planned public offering of the Ant Group, a financial tech powerhouse in which Alibaba owns one-third of the shares, citing “major issues” in terms of listing conditions and disclosure requirements. Meant to raise $37 billion, the IPO on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges was expected to be the largest ever worldwide. As previously reported, the Ant Group has just launched the AntChain, a blockchain-based international platform to facilitate cross-border sales of products and services by small and medium-sized enterprises.
Meanwhile, Alibaba said it achieved RMB 100 million ($12.8m-$15.1m) in gross merchandise volume (GMV) with products by Nike, Adidas, Apple and more than 100 other brands in the first 11 minutes of a new first session of its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival on Nov. 1-3. Over 1,800 brands that have been on its Tmall platform for less than three years surpassed the GMV generated one year ago on Nov. 1, and 94 of them raised their sales by more than 1,000 percent.
Replacing the former Single’s Day, a second window of the shopping festival will go live at the regular date of Nov. 11. Altogether, Alibaba will have offered about two million new products by more than 250,00 brands during the 2020 edition of its 12-year-old shopping bonanza.
To help foreign companies to enter the Chinese market, Alibaba will host a 45-minute broadcast on Nov. 11 at 10:30 a.m. ET, called “Understanding 11.11 Alibaba’s Mega Shopping Festival.”
