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Alibaba’s First Public Earnings Reveal Major Revenue Growth

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Alibaba Group Holding reported its first quarterly earnings Tuesday after going public with a record-breaking $25 billion offering in September.

What you need to know: Alibaba’s profit beat analysts’ expectations as shopping traffic in China picked up and more advertisers flocked to the company’s sites. Annual active buyers were up 52% year-over-year, which helped boost gross merchandise volume through Alibaba’s sites.

Alibaba makes money by acting as a middleman for online transactions. The company takes a commission on each purchase, which means Alibaba’s revenues are a percentage of the overall sales, or what the company refers to as gross merchandise volume, or GMV. Revenue for the quarter surpassed analysts’ estimates and was up almost 54% year-over-year.

The big number: Profit, excluding one-time items, reached 2.79 yuan per share, or 46 cents, surpassing analysts’ estimates of 2.74 yuan, or 45 cents, according to Bloomberg data. Revenue also beat expectations, coming in at 16.8 billion yuan, or $2.7 billion, compared with an estimated 16 billion yuan, or $2.62 billion.

What else you need to know: Alibaba has been luring more vendors to its Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com website by promoting its advertising tools and cloud-computing services that delve into shoppers preferences. By offering a greater variety of vendor options, Alibaba is hoping to continue adding to the bottom line by growing GMV. The e-retailer is adding to its stable to become the dominant player in the $450 billion Chinese market.

Chairman and founder Jack Ma has been on the hunt for ways to expand Alibaba geographically as well as build out the scope of its offerings. Ma has been in Hollywood meeting with movie studios about potential content deals to add to its media offerings, especially as more Chinese youth stream shows from TV set-tops and their mobile devices. More than 217 million monthly active users accessed Alibaba’s mobile commerce apps in September alone.

5 Quirky Things You Didn't Know About Alibaba's Jack Ma

Stephen Chow and Jack Ma Hold Dialogue in Beijing
Ma doesn't mind practicing Tai Chi in public. Here he and Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chow enjoy the ancient martial art at the Communication University of China in Beijing in January, 2013.Li Xueshi—ColorChina/AP
Jack Ma, chairman and founder of Alibaba
Jack Ma really likes performing on stage, and the more outlandish the clothing, the better. Here, Ma performs at an evening party in Hangzhou, east China on September 10, 2009, to celebrate his company's 10th anniversary—while looking a little like Bjork, if she were 20 years older and a practicing Wiccan. STR/AFP/Getty Images
John Donahoe Visits Hngzhou
He's apparently a fan of the Terminator franchise. In 2010 he met then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who presented him with a leather jacket and black sunglasses during a trip to China to represent the "Terminator" outfit. If Ma knew his company would have an IPO in the U.S. four years later, he'd probably have said "I'll be back."ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
PA pensions rising health premiums taxes
Holding a crystal ball-like orb is a good way to introduce a new software product, if you ask Ma. Here, he and Alibaba.com Vice President Oliver Wang touch a device to signify the launch of the ALISOFT software during a news conference in 2007 in Shanghai, China.Eugene Hoshik—AP
CHINA-INTERNET-RETAIL-ALIBABA-AUTONAVI
Yes, Ma really does love to sing. His onstage attire was a little less flamboyant by the time this 2013 photo was taken on the 10th anniversary of China's popular Taobao online marketplace, but he is still wearing a silver jacket and what looks like a Kangol. Peter Parks—AFP/Getty Images

Ma is also looking to work with Apple to build out a mobile payments system, and more initiatives may be ahead. Alibaba is “encouraged by continued improvement of mobile monetization which demonstrates the strong commercial intent of our users,” said CEO Jonathan Lu.

Beyond those offerings, the group is also making headway globally in its core online shopping business. Its AliExpress marketplace, founded in 2010, serves customers outside of China and has already become the lead online shopping destination in Russia and Brazil. Alibaba is on the hunt for deals that could help broaden its reach in Africa, Southeast Asia, the U.S. and Europe.

This article originally appeared on Fortune.com

 

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