Alibaba's Q3 profit jumps over 70 percent

Alibaba said profit jumped more than 70 percent in the third quarter amid synergies between its core e-commerce business and other digital technologies and data capabilities.

“We are seeing the early results from our efforts to integrate online and offline with our new retail strategy,” chief executive officer Daniel Zhang said in a statement.

Non-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) profit for the three months ended September 30 jumped 71 percent to 25.09 billion yuan (US$3.74 billion) and revenue from core commerce business surged 63 percent to 46.4 billion yuan.

The number of active monthly mobile users on its retail marketplaces added 20 million from that of June to 549 million.

“We generated approximately US$3.4 billion cash flow (non-GAAP), which enables us to invest in our future growth areas of core commerce, including logistics, cloud computing, digital entertainment and other innovation initiatives,” said chief financial officer Maggie Wu.

Business to consumer market Tmall saw gross merchandise volume of physical goods adding 49 percent from a year ago thanks to rapid growth in consumer electronics and fast-moving consumer goods categories.

Alibaba Group's cloud computing revenue nearly doubled to 2.97 billion yuan while digital media and entertainment businesses generated 4.8 billion yuan, adding 33 percent from a year ago.

Revenue from international commerce retail business totaled 2.87 billion yuan, up 1.15 times from a year ago.

In a separate statement today, the company said it plans to purchase 38 percent of retail software service provider Shiji Retail Information Technology for no more than US$500 million. It seeks to drive the information service provider to connect offline retailing facilities with online consumers by leveraging its data capabilities.