Alibaba’s Sales Up 14%, Pushed by International Sales

Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba on Thursday (Aug. 10) posted a quarterly sales growth of 14% from the previous year, as its online shopping app Taobao and Tmall Group showed strength.

Speaking during the earnings call, CEO Daniel Zhang said, “We reported a very good quarter. … Our overseas digital commerce business and we are happy to see that our strategies after a couple of quarters efforts as we see a strong sign of success. And we strongly believe this is a sustainable trend.”

The Hangzhou, China, headquartered firm reported a 14% year-over-year growth in its revenue to RMB234 billion ($32.3 billion) in the quarter ending June 30. Its main businesses, Taobao and Tmall Group, saw revenue climb 12% to RMB114.95 billion ($16 billion).

The eCommerce giant announced earlier this summer that it planned to launch its Tmall site in Europe.

The Taobao app for online shopping saw daily active users jump 6.5% year over year in June and further to more than 7% in July. The company’s push into overseas markets also paid off, with revenue from international commerce retail surging 60% to RMB17.14 billion ($2.4 billion) in the June quarter, according to the supplemental investors report.

The company has also been focusing on cloud computing. Zhang said, “Cloud is relevant to all the industries. If you ask me on which industries we prioritize, I would say, actually, first of all, I think the internet companies, I think because all the internet companies are digital native companies and they’re supposed to be — grow their business on cloud.”

The firm’s cloud business reported revenue growth of 4% to RMB25.12 billion. They said they saw “strong demand” in the cloud business for training artificial intelligence models and related services.

Alibaba also reported strong growth in the June quarter for its local services, including investments in improving user experience on the Tmall supermarket and the rolling out of half-day delivery services in 20 cities across China, with revenues from the local service group growing 30%.

Alibaba also has plans to seek an initial public offering in the U.S. for its eCommerce unit.