Alibaba revenue beats estimates on cloud boost; shares rise

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China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd beat analysts' estimates for fourth-quarter revenue on Wednesday, boosted by growth in its core e-commerce and cloud computing businesses.

The company's shares rose more than two percent to 179.79 U.S. dollars in pre-market trading.

Alibaba makes money primarily by selling advertising and promotional services to third-party merchants that list products on Taobao and Tmall, two of its e-commerce sites. The business boomed in tandem with Internet adoption and mobile phone penetration in China.

Revenue for the January-March period rose 51 percent year-on-year to 93.5 billion yuan (13.6 billion U.S. dollars), a company statement said, beating estimates of 91.58 billion yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Revenue in the Hangzhou-based company's core e-commerce segment, which accounts for the vast majority of its business, jumped 54 percent, while the smaller but fast-growing cloud computing unit surged 76 percent.

Net profit was 25.8 billion yuan, up more than three-fold compared to the same period a year earlier.

Alibaba is the world's third-largest cloud service provider, after Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc, and the largest in China with a market share of over 40 percent, according to data from IDC.

Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders rose to 25.83 billion yuan from 7.56 billion yuan in the fourth quarter.

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters