Source: novac.hr
The Chinese Internet company Alibaba recorded a net profit of almost 31 billion yuan in the last quarter of 2018 ($4.92 billion), up 37 percent over year earlier, and exceeding analysts’ forecasts.
For the first time the Chinese giant acquired a German startup for 90 million euros. Alibaba is the second most valuable company in Asia (after Tencent), and in the said period it has increased its revenue by 41 percent to 117.28 billion yuan ($15.5 billion).
Despite the impressive growth in revenue, this was the weakest growth rate of Alibaba’s revenue since 2016, driven by the slowdown in China’s economic growth and the US-Chinese trade war.
Since Alibaba sales are often used as an indicator of retail sales in the world’s second largest economy, investors have been somewhat concerned by the slowdown in sales growth rates.
However, Alibaba CEO, Daniel Zhang, said that the company remains optimistic. As far as the business itself is concerned – younger customers are still the main drivers of sales.
Thanks to the large net profit growth as well as Alibaba’s record-breaking investment in 2018, the company’s share price on the New York Stock Exchange grew by more than six percent after the announcement of business results.
Last year, the company invested record sales of 278.8 billion yuan ($41.6 billion) in product, sales and marketing development, boosting its investments by 87 percent compared to 2017.
