TheChek News Flow

BN 08/12 11:03 *ALIBABA NET ADDITION OF 18M MAUS OVER QUARTER
BN 08/12 11:03 *ALIBABA QTR MOBILE MAUS GREW TO 307M
BN 08/12 11:02 *ALIBABA CHINA RETAIL MARKETPLACES HAD 367M ANNUAL ACTIVE BUYERS
BN 08/12 11:02 *BABA 1Q MOBILE REV. EXCEEDED 50% OF CHINA COMMERCE RETAIL REV.
BN 08/12 11:02 *ALIBABA MOBILE QTR MOBILE REV. $1.29B
BN 08/12 11:01 *ALIBABA MOBILE GMV REACHED $60B, BOOST OF 125%
BN 08/12 11:01 *ALIBABA 1Q NON-GAAP EBITDA MARGIN 52%
BN 08/12 11:01 *ALIBABA SAYS GMV GREW TO US$109B
BN 08/12 11:00 *ALIBABA 1Q NON-GAAP EBITDA 10.6B YUAN, EST. 10.9B YUAN
BN 08/12 11:00 *ALIBABA TO BUY BACK UP TO $4B SHARES OVER 2 YEARS
BN 08/12 11:00 *ALIBABA TO BUY BACK UP TO $4B SHARES
BN 08/12 11:00 *ALIBABA GROUP GENERATED 10.4 BLN YUAN FROM OPERATIONS IN 1Q
BN 08/12 11:00 *ALIBABA GROUP 1Q REV. 20.2 BLN YUAN :BABA US
BN 08/12 11:00 *ALIBABA GROUP 1Q SALES UP 28% :BABA US

Alibaba Group Announces June Quarter 2015 Results
2015-08-12 11:00:00.366 GMT

Alibaba Group Announces June Quarter 2015 Results

Business Wire

HANGZHOU, China -- August 12, 2015

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) today announced its financial
results for the quarter ended June 30, 2015.

“We had a strong quarter and we continued to build the foundations for future
growth. We focused our efforts on building healthy GMV growth, delivering the
best consumer experience, and improving the quality and sustainability of
merchants doing business on our marketplaces,” said Daniel Zhang, Chief
Executive Officer of Alibaba Group. “We are excited about our top strategic
priorities, including internationalization, winning in mobile, expanding our
ecosystem from cities to villages, and investing in core technologies that
will propel our cloud computing business.”

“We executed very well in the June quarter. GMV grew to US$109 billion, a
year-on-year increase of US$28 billion,” said Maggie Wu, Chief Financial
Officer of Alibaba Group. “We also made significant progress monetizing our
mobile traffic, with our mobile revenue exceeding 50% of our total China
commerce retail revenue for the first time. Again, we have generated strong
free cash flow of US$1.5 billion this quarter. We continue to execute our
growth strategy and focus on long-term value creation. The fundamental
strength of our business gives us the confidence to invest in new initiatives,
add new users, improve customer experience and expand our products and
services.”

Business Highlights and Strategic Updates

In the quarter ended June 30, 2015:

* GMV transacted on our China retail marketplaces was RMB673 billion (US$109
billion), an increase of 34% year-over-year. Excluding the effect of the
suspended lottery business, GMV would have increased by 36%
year-over-year;
* Revenue was RMB20,245 million (US$3,265 million), an increase of 28%
year-over-year. Excluding the effect of the suspended online lottery
business and the SME loan business we transferred to Ant Financial,
revenue would have increased by 36% year-over-year;
* Mobile GMV reached RMB371 billion (US$60 billion), an increase of 125%
year-over-year, and accounted for 55% of total GMV transacted on our China
retail marketplaces; mobile revenue was RMB7,987 million (US$1,288
million), exceeding 50% of our total China commerce retail revenue for the
first time;
* Growth of our cloud computing and Internet infrastructure business
accelerated, with revenue increasing 106% year-over-year to RMB485 million
(US$78 million); and
* Non-GAAP free cash flow was RMB9,548 million (US$1,540 million).

Mobile monetization – We extended our mobile usage leadership with 307 million
MAUs and 55% of GMV transacted through mobile devices during the June 2015
quarter, and we made significant progress in monetizing mobile transactions.
For the first time, mobile revenues exceeded desktop revenues in our China
retail marketplaces. Our mobile revenue from China retail marketplaces for the
current quarter was RMB7,987 million (US$1,288 million), accounting for 51% of
our China retail marketplace revenue in the June 2015 quarter, which
represents a year-on-year increase in mobile revenue of 225%.

Logistics – Through our logistics affiliate Cainiao, we believe we have
created the largest logistics service ecosystem in China through strategic
partnerships with logistics players in warehousing, transportation, courier
services and pick-up stations. We are increasing our emphasis on service
quality and customer satisfaction. Consumers now enjoy next-day delivery
services in 41 major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen
and Hangzhou, and this will be extended to 50 cities by the end of this year.
We have also launched same-day delivery of groceries, initially starting with
Beijing and Shanghai, which has been very successful, with grocery sales in
Beijing increasing 740% year-on-year while 90% of orders came from mobile
devices. In addition, through our partnership with Suning Commerce Group
Limited (“Suning”) as recently announced, consumers in over 150 cities will be
able to enjoy two-hour delivery services for consumer electronics and home
appliances.

Through strategic investments, we are making substantial progress in enhancing
consumer experience in specific product categories, including white goods
through our partnership with RRS (the logistics arm of Haier Electronics). Our
partnership with Suning will further improve user experience in the consumer
electronics and home appliances category. In addition, we continue to enhance
industry logistics standards and capabilities through our strategic investment
in YTO Express, one of our major courier delivery partners, and Singapore
Post, one of our major cross-border logistics partners.

Cloud computing – We have established ourselves as the No. 1 market leader in
cloud computing services in China. We are beginning to see the positive impact
of years of investment in proprietary technology and reliable and high-value
cloud service offerings. In the June 2015 quarter, our revenue growth from
cloud computing and Internet infrastructure increased 106% year-on-year,
driven by the accelerated growth of our cloud computing business compared to
the year-on-year growth rate of 82% in the prior quarter.

We have seen rapid growth of our customer base across computation, storage,
content delivery and data management services. Internet publishers such as
Sina Weibo rely on our cloud computing services to ensure uninterrupted
delivery of content-rich web pages. Gaming companies such as Play800 and
taxi-hailing app operator Kuadi are using our open data processing services to
analyze vast amounts of data to manage their business. State-owned public
service providers such as China Rail Customer Service Center used our elastic
computing services to handle peak capacity of 29.7 billion page views in one
day for train ticket booking before the Chinese New Year in 2015. In addition,
millions of merchants on our China retail marketplaces have built their
storefronts, ERP and CRM systems on our cloud.

International operations – Growing our business internationally is a strategic
priority for the Company because our mission is “to make it easy to do
business anywhere.” In recent months we have made substantial progress in
providing international brands access to Chinese consumers shopping on our
marketplaces. More and more brands view our Tmall platform as the only
e-commerce channel to develop their China business. In June, we also announced
partnerships with 12 countries to launch Country Pavilions, which are curated,
vertical shopping sites designed to promote popular products and authentic
specialty products from selected small and medium businesses from each
country.

Last week, we appointed Michael Evans as President of Alibaba Group. He will
lead the team to drive increased levels of cross-border commerce between China
and the world. Michael and his team will focus on forging close partnerships
with key brands, retailers and product owners in Europe, the Americas and Asia
to help them build their brands and customer base in China.

Mobile Internet services – Mobile value-added services are critical to user
experience and expanding our ecosystem. During the past year, we have
successfully integrated the mobile internet business of UCWeb, the No. 1
mobile browser in China according to iResearch, and the most popular
third-party mobile browser in India and Indonesia according to StatCounter.
UCWeb has achieved over 330 million MAUs in June 2015 on a global basis. With
the scale of UCWeb’s mobile users, our mobile Internet services division is
well-positioned to execute growth strategies in mobile search, apps
distribution and mobile game communities.

Local services – During the June 2015 quarter we announced a joint venture,
operating under the trade name Koubei, with our affiliate Ant Financial to
execute our strategic plan in the local services sector. The market size of
the online-to-offline penetration of the local services market is projected to
be over RMB300 billion in GMV in 2015, according to iResearch. Koubei’s
services will initially cover take-out food, restaurants, other entertainment
establishments, convenience stores, hospitals and pharmacies. Users can access
these services through either Mobile Taobao App or Alipay Wallet (the mobile
wallet app operated by Ant Financial), which enable a closed-loop of
online-to-offline interaction between consumers and physical stores through
mobile payment. We believe that combining our leadership position in mobile
commerce with Ant Financial’s leadership position in mobile payments – with
hundreds of millions mobile users already making transactions through Mobile
Taobao App and Alipay Wallet – will put us in a unique position to capture
growth opportunities in this market.

Delivering the best consumer experience – Our China retail marketplaces
continue to be the destination for consumers to find the broadest selection of
quality products. We continue to enhance the consumer experience by offering
efficient logistics services and increasing the number of brands selling
high-quality products. In addition, we are taking steps to improve the quality
and health of our marketplaces through proprietary data technology and
collaboration with government agencies in China, such as market supervision
authorities and public security bureaus, to minimize counterfeiters and
fictitious transactions. We believe the efficacy of our technology-driven
approach, as well as our commitment to gain the trust of consumers and brands,
are increasingly driving bad actors off our platforms.

Recent Strategic Investment – On August 10, we entered into definitive
agreements to establish a comprehensive partnership with Suning, one of
China’s largest consumer electronics retailers with over 1,600 retail stores,
65 national and regional distribution centers, over 1,700 last-mile delivery
stations and over 3,000 after-sale service locations and over 5,000 affiliate
servicing partners. Under our agreements, Alibaba will invest RMB28.3 billion
(US$4.6 billion) for 19.99% of the enlarged equity capital of Suning and form
a strategic alliance to build on synergies in e-commerce, logistics and
incremental business through joint omni-channel initiatives. We believe this
transaction would bring significant strategic benefits to Alibaba, including
improved product selection, competitive pricing, and better customer
experience through reliable delivery and after-sale services.

Share Repurchase Program

Our Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program in an
aggregate amount of up to US$4 billion over a period of two years, primarily
to offset dilution, for example, from our share-based compensation programs.

June Quarter Operational and Financial Results*

Major Operational Metrics:

  June 30,   March 31,   June 30,   % Change

2014 2015 2015 YoY   QoQ
 
Quarterly GMV^(1) (in RMB 501 600 673 34 % 12 %
billions)
Quarterly mobile GMV^(1) (in 164 304 371 125 % 22 %
RMB billions)
Mobile GMV as a percentage of 33 % 51 % 55 %
total GMV^(1)
Annual active buyers^(2) (in 279 350 367 32 % 5 %
millions)
Mobile monthly active users 188 289 307 63 % 6 %
(MAUs)^(3) (in millions)