Alibaba sees its Jan-March revenue up 7%

Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group Holding Ltd reported on Tuesday night that its revenue stood at 221.87 billion yuan ($30.7 billion) during the January-March period, an increase of 7 percent year-on-year, while its net income reached 3.27 billion yuan, down 86 percent year-on-year.

For the quarter ending on March 31, revenue from Alibaba's core e-commerce business, which refers to its Taobao and Tmall platforms, rose 4 percent year-on-year to 93.2 billion yuan.

The unit achieved double-digit online GMV (gross merchandise volume) and order growth year-on-year, driven by strong increase in the number of purchasers and purchase frequency, Alibaba said.

Revenue from its cloud computing business rose 3 percent year-on-year to 25.6 billion yuan during this period, with core public cloud products recording double-digit growth in revenue. Its artificial intelligence-related revenue saw accelerated growth and continued to record triple-digit growth year-on-year.

"This quarter's results demonstrate that our strategies are working and we are returning to growth. Our China and international commerce businesses realized double-digit year-over-year GMV growth through our focus on the customer experience," said Wu Yongming, CEO of Alibaba Group.

Alibaba has set its focus on growing its core e-commerce and cloud computing businesses in the wake of a sweeping restructuring, which was announced a year ago.

The company also reported its revenue came up to 941.2 billion yuan for the fiscal year ending March 31, up 8 percent year-on-year, while its net profits increased 9 percent on a yearly basis to 71.3 billion yuan.

fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn