Alibaba records 58% increase in revenue last fiscal

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba announced Friday that its annual revenue rose 58 per cent year-on-year to 250.3 billion yuan (approx. 39.3 billion US dollars) for the fiscal year ending March 2018, a record high since its IPO in New York in 2014.

The increase was mainly driven by the rapid growth of its commerce retail business, cloud computing business as well as consolidation of newly acquired businesses.

Alibaba also announced its fourth-quarter results. Its revenue rose 61 per cent to 61.9 billion yuan (9.73 billion US dollars) in the quarter ending March, an increase of 61 per cent year-on-year. The core e-commerce business contributed 51.29 billion yuan (approx. 8.18 billion US dollars) to the revenue, which increased 62 per cent.

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Meanwhile, its net profit decreased 29 per cent year-on-year to 7.6 billion yuan (approx. 1.2 billion US dollars) in the quarter, primarily due to non-recurring disposal gains from sales of certain investments in the same quarter of 2017.

The annual active users in its China retail marketplaces had reached 552 million by March, and the number of new annual active consumers in the quarter was the highest since its IPO.

In addition, the financial report showed, that together with its global partners, Alipay had been providing services to around 870 million active users around the world by March 31. It is the first time Alipay has published the number of active users worldwide.

Based on the predictability of full-year growth in fiscal 2019, along with the potential for investment in technology as well as new retail sectors over the past year, Alibaba expects an overall revenue growth of over 60 per cent in next fiscal year.