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Alibaba's American depository shares were up 7.5
percent at $86 in premarket trading.
The company also said on Thursday that Chief Executive Jonathan
Lu will step down, effective May 10, and would be replaced by
Chief Operating Officer Daniel Zhang. Lu will remain on the
board as vice chairman.
Alibaba's revenue jumped to $2.81 billion in the quarter ended
March 31, beating the average analyst estimate of $2.77 billion,
according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The company earned $463 million, or 18 cents per share.
Excluding items, the company earned 48 cents per share, beating
the 42 cents analysts estimated.
Alibaba's gross merchandise volume (GMV) on China retail
marketplaces jumped 40 percent to $97 billion. Mobile GMV
continued to grow, accounting for 51 percent of total GMV, up
from 42 percent in the December quarter.
About two-thirds of Alibaba's sales still come from its
consumer-to-consumer marketplace Taobao, where it primarily
earns revenue from advertising and marketing services and
charges less for marketing on mobile devices than on computers.
"We assume that stepped up efforts to remove counterfeit goods
has a measurable impact on GMV this quarter," MKM Partners
analyst Rob Sanderson wrote in a note on May 4.
Investors have been spooked in recent months by the perception
of increased regulatory pressure on Alibaba to tackle the sale
of counterfeit goods on its platforms. Executive Chairman Jack
Ma's hiring freeze announcement also dampened enthusiasm among
those primed to expect continued rapid growth.
The number of mobile monthly active users soared 77 percent to
289 million. The number of overall annual active buyers
increased 37 percent to 350 million.
The quarterly report card was only the third since Alibaba's
record-breaking $25 billion initial public offering in New York
in September.
Up to Wednesday's close, the stock had fallen more than 33
percent since hitting a record high of $120 in November.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru and John Ruwitch
in Shanghai; Editing by Joyjeet Das)
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