Jack’s Giant: Alibaba’s revenue soars

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has posted impressive results for the last quarter of 2020.

Jack Ma’s e-commerce giant saw revenues up 37% against the same quarter of 2019 to 221bn yuan ($34.2bn, £25bn).

But the results come amid continued uncertainty over the company’s financial affiliate Ant Group.

Alibaba said it was “unable to complete a fair assessment” of the impact of Ant’s stalled share market launch.

Alibaba’s chief executive Daniel Zhang attributed the firm’s strong results to China’s economic growth.

Although the world’s second largest economy saw sluggish progress compared to previous years, it was the only major economy to grow during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Strong results for Singles Day, Alibaba’s biggest sale of the year, also helped the company’s revenues.

“However, many are looking at the business and wondering where the next wave of growth will come from,” said Andy Halliwell, a retail analyst from technology consultancy Publicis Sapient.

Alibaba’s cloud computing revenues rose 50% over the same quarter last year, hitting $2.5bn and posting a profit for the first time.