Alibaba beats China’s economic slowdown, grows to 434m shoppers

Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma.

China’s ecommerce giant Alibaba this evening revealed it now has 434 million “annual active buyers” on its shopping sites, Taobao and Tmall, which is up from 367 million at the same period the year before.

Alibaba’s Q2 earnings report shows that Chinese shoppers spent a grand total of US$126 billion from April to June, a strong uptick from the US$101.3 billion spent in the same three-month timeframe last year, beating a slowing Chinese economy.

Spending from mobile devices reached a record high 75 percent, rising from 55 percent the year prior.

“Increased mobile shopping and rural market demand will continue to drive Alibaba’s China ecommerce sales growth,” says Emarketer analyst Andria Cheng.

Costly new ventures

Showing that the company is increasingly diversifying from its roots in ecommerce, revenue growth outpaced the rise in consumer expenditure on its stores. That was because it pulled in more money from its cloud computing services and from its digital media wing.

Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace is the top online store in China. Alibaba also runs the second largest store, called Tmall.

Alibaba had “an outstanding quarter,” said CEO Daniel Zhang in a statement. The firm, China’s top online shopping destination ahead of arch-rival JD, saw revenues rise 59 percent.

Alibaba is still facing an SEC probe.

The firm, co-founded by billionaire Jack Ma, showed off its increasing diversity by breaking down some of its finances across various divisions, displaying that the cloud computing business saw revenues rise 156 percent in the past year. However, its Amazon-esque cloud and digital media offerings as well as its Cainiao logistics division made losses, tempering the income it brought in from its more established online shopping wing.

The digital part covers Youku, China’s top streaming video site which Alibaba acquired in October, as well as other products like the UC Browser app and the Netflix-style TBO service.

Alibaba is facing an SEC probe into its accounting practices, which caused a dive in its stock in May. However, beating analysts’ estimates on earnings and revenue, it is likely to get $BABA soaring once markets open within the hour.

Converted from Chinese yuan. Rate: US$1 = RMB 6.64.