Alibaba beats expectations for the April-June period

Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group Holding Ltd delivered better-than-expected financial results for the April-June period on Thursday, with total revenue standing at 234.16 billion yuan ($32.3 billion), up 14 percent year-on-year.

Its net income attributable to ordinary shareholders came in at 34.33 billion yuan for the quarter ending June 30, an increase of 50.98 percent on a yearly basis. Non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income reached 44.92 billion yuan, up 48 percent from a year earlier.

Daniel Zhang, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group, said the company delivered a solid quarter as it continues to execute organizational restructuring, which is beginning to unleash new energy across its businesses.

"Through this self-driven transformation, we aim to catalyze innovation, promote vitality in our organization and enable businesses to focus on long-term growth. We look forward to positive impacts on our business, including strengthening competitiveness, sustainable growth and shareholder value creation," Zhang said.

During this period, revenue from its core e-commerce business, which refers to its Taobao and Tmall platforms, rose 12 percent year-on-year, with the average daily active users of Taobao growing 6.5 percent year-on-year. Revenue in the cloud computing business amounted to 25.12 billion yuan during this period, an increase of 4 percent year-on-year mainly driven by storage, networks and artificial intelligence computing-related products.

The company has announced it would split its business into six main units, with each separate business having the flexibility to raise outside capital and seek its own initial public offering. The six units cover cloud intelligence, Taobao Tmall commerce, local services, Cainiao smart logistics, global digital commerce and digital media and entertainment.