Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce group founded by Jack Ma, delivered its fastest pace of quarterly sales growth since its 2014 flotation as it defied the wider slowdown in the Chinese economy and fears about its business model.
Revenue at the New York-listed company jumped 59 per cent year on year to $4.8bn in the three months to the end of June, slightly ahead of analyst expectations of $4.5bn. That came on the back of a resilient performance by its main Chinese platform, fuelled by increasing mobile commerce and rapid growth in its nascent cloud computing business.
Alibaba’s better than expected figures came a day after its main Chinese rival, JD.com, reported results that were ahead of market predictions.