Jack Ma, chairman and then-chief executive officer of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has reported a sharp rise in sales, its revenue jumped a better-than-expected 32 per cent during its September quarter, as more customers spent money through the online retailer. © BBC
Jack Ma, chairman and then-chief executive officer of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has reported a sharp rise in sales, its revenue jumped a better-than-expected 32 per cent during its September quarter, as more customers spent money through the online retailer. © BBC

Revenue for the three months to the end of September was 22.2bn yuan ($3.5bn; £2.3bn), up 32% from a year earlier.

Revenue from mobile devices grew particularly strongly.

The value of transactions conducted through the website totalled 713bn yuan, with the number of active buyers growing to 386 million.

“This was a great quarter for Alibaba Group, with strong growth across the board and particular outperformance in mobile,” said chief executive Daniel Zhang.

“We are winning in mobile and remain focused on our top strategic priorities, including internationalisation, expanding our ecosystem from cities to villages and building a world-class cloud computing business.”

Alibaba said it had increased the number of villages in China it offers sales and delivery services to by more than 4,000 during the quarter.

Growth outside of China has been more muted.

“The performance of Alibaba’s international division is reasonable but far from spectacular,” said Neil Suanders at retail analyst Conlumino.

“At retail level, sales were up by a fairly modest 14.8%. In our view, this underlines the fact that, despite its scale and its technical expertise, Alibaba continues to struggle in carving out a niche in crowded and competitive Western markets.”