Alibaba Group announces its financial results for Q3 2018

Alibaba

Alibaba’s total revenue increased by 54% year-over-year to CNY*85,148m in Q3 2018. Income from operations decreased by 19% to CNY13,501m partly due to the consolidation of Ele.me and Cainiao Network and other strategic initiatives, this also affected the adjusted EBITDA.

Core commerce revenues increased 56% year-over-year to CNY72,475m. The growth of core commerce is largely due new retail initiatives, an increase in volumes and the personalisation of technology for consumers. Commission revenue growth is due to a strong year-on-year growth of 30% in physical goods GMV (excluding unpaid orders) on Tmall. Adjusted EBITDA for core commerce increased 13% to CNY29,807m.

Revenue from Cainiao Logistics Services (revenue from the domestic and international one-stop-shop logistics services and supply chain management solutions, not counting inter-company transaction) was CNY3,206m. Alibaba started to consolidate Cainiao Network in mid-October 2017.

Revenue from China commerce wholesale business was CNY2,497m, an increase of 46% compared to CNY1,714m in the same quarter of 2017. The increase was due to an increase in the average revenue from paying members on our 1688.com platform.

Revenue from the international commerce retail business was CNY4,464m, an increase of 55%. The increase is attributed to the growth in revenue generated from Lazada and AliExpress.

International commerce wholesale business’ revenue was CNY2,022m, an increase of 22%. This growth has credited the increase to growth in the number of paying members and average revenue from paying members on the alibaba.com platform.

“We outpaced all industry peers by again delivering robust revenue growth of 54% this quarter.” said Maggie Wu, Chief Financial Officer of Alibaba Group. “While the growth of our overall profitability this quarter has been tempered by significant investments in local services, logistics, entertainment and international expansion, our core marketplace business continued to show strong profit and cash flow growth, which enables us to re-invest into strategic areas and our technology.”

Source: Alibaba Group

*$=CNY6.89 /€=CNY7.84