The e-commerce giant doubled its net income for ordinary shareholders since the end of December rising to $1.35 billion while revenues rose 66% to $3.06 for the quarter. These numbers come from Yahoo which has a 24% stake in Alibaba, but the real story is Alibaba itself.
Alibaba, despite its recent and ongoing acquisition spree, is a giant that could be valued as high as $200 billion when it’s underwritten ahead of its IPO. The company is by no means resting on its laurels and continues to move into mobile with the understanding that more and more of the many and many Chinese people it calls its customers access the Internet more and more through mobile devices first.
“Singles’ Day”
The company did especially well with November’s newly minted “holiday,” “Singles’ Day.” The “Singles’ Day” promotion on Nov. 11 saw transactions on its two main online stores, Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com, top 35 billion RMB ($5.6 billion) in a 24-hour period.
“Alibaba had a strong season partly due to sales promotions,” Alex Wang, a Beijing-based analyst at Internet consulting group IResearch, said before earnings were reported. “Strong earnings will be good for its IPO.”
Alibaba, which doesn’t sell merchandise itself, connects brands with consumers while pocketing a commission and raking in huge advertising revenues.
Crazy valuation
To read the consensus analysts’ valuation of Alibaba compiled in February would value the company at $156 billion. However, by the time the company goes public $200 billion is expected if not expected to be exceeded. That would have the Chinese e-commerce giant surpassing Amazon, Facebook, and Tencent Holdings. Google is absent there as it would be the only Internet company with a higher valuation.
Nevermind the stake that Yahoo and SoftBank hold in Alibaba, the latter holding 37%, with profit numbers like Alibaba has shown (with no sign of letting up) Jack Ma and his partners which began in 1999 are in for a massive windfall but won’t be rushing to sell their personal holdings.
