Alibaba smashes Q4 expectations and tops $1 trillion gross merchandise volume for first time

Alibaba has smashed expectations during its fourth quarter seeing revenues and profits soar as lockdown forced shoppers online.

The Chinese ecommerce giant “reported better than expected March quarter results”, after predicting at the end of the previous quarter that it could take a hit from the coronavirus.

Instead of seeing a drop in revenue, Alibaba saw sales in its core retail business jump 19 per cent to 93.87 billion yuan (£10.69 billion), while its cloud computing business saw sales skyrocket 58 per cent.

This saw combined revenues for the three months to March 31 rise from 93.50 billion yuan (£10.64 billion) in 2019 to 114.31 billion yuan (£13.02 billion), coming well above analyst estimates of 107.04 billion yuan (£12.19 million).

Meanwhile earnings per share rose by seven per cent to $1.30 per share, well above analyst estimates of 87 cents per share.

READ MORE: Alibaba launches “Luxury Soho” discount designer outlet

For the full year Alibaba saw sales rise 35 per cent to 512.81 billion yuan (£58.38 billion) while earnings per share jumped 38 per cent to $7.48.

Gross merchandise volumes also surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in the company’s history, and Alibaba said it expected revenues for the fiscal year 2021 to top 650 billion yuan (£74 billion).

“Although the pandemic negatively impacted most of our domestic core commerce businesses starting in late January, we have seen a steady recovery since March,” Alibaba’s chief financial officer Maggie Wu said.

Monthly users also jumped significantly, rising 15 million since the previous quarter to 726 million.

Alibaba’s chairman Daniel Zhang added: “The pandemic has fundamentally altered consumer behavior and enterprise operations, making digital adoption and transformation a necessity,”

“We are well positioned and prepared to help large and small businesses across a wide spectrum of industries achieve the digital transformation they need to survive this difficult period and eventually prevail in the new normal.”

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