Alibaba announces FY2016 results
Alibaba has reported that its revenue for fiscal year (FY) 2016 was over RMB100bn. Revenue for the fourth quarter (Q4) ended 31 March was RMB 24.184bn (US$3.751bn), an increase of 39% year-over-year.
Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group, commented: “Alibaba Group finished the fiscal year on a very strong note. In March we surpassed RMB3 trillion in annual GMV and our revenue for the year was over RMB100bn. We achieved strong growth in mobile users, active buyers and transactions.
“Our focus on long-term strategic priorities – globalization, rural expansion, building a world-class cloud computing business and creating a comprehensive media and entertainment platform – has laid a strong foundation for future growth.”
Click here to view the full Alibaba statement on its FY2016 results.
While a 39% year-on-year revenue jump is impressive, some in the industry caution that Chinese online retail giant still has to address some key issues.
David Jinks, Head of Consumer research at Fastlane International, for example, said that Alibaba needs to win its ongoing battle with counterfeit goods. The company has made this a priority and has just hired Apple’s former investigator, Matthew Bassiur, to help stamp out counterfeits.
Alibaba also has to focus on reducing delivery costs.
Jinks commented: “Alibaba is planning to invest further in Singapore Post, but that deal has been slower to complete than expected and was recently postponed again from April 7 to May 31st. Both companies are still in the process of fulfilling a number of conditions, according to SingPost. The idea is that the e-commerce giant will hold a total 14.51% stake in SingPost. One of the reasons SingPost is so attractive is because of its subsidiary, Quantium Solutions International. QSI provides end-to-end ecommerce fulfilment across the Asia Pacific region. QSI will become the joint venture vehicle of SingPost and Alibaba.
“SingPost/QSI will then look after everything from setting up websites to managing inventories and transportation, operating across over 50 distribution centres across at least 18 countries — including major e-commerce markets in the U.S., Europe, China and the rest of the Asia Pacific region. A logistics hub in the city-state costing 182 million Singapore dollars ($132 million) is scheduled for completion this year. Once in operation, it will consolidate e-commerce deliveries from across the world.”
Jinks concluded: “Amazon shares have come good partly because of its bold investment in logistics. Alibaba needs similar development of its own fulfilment operation to achieve the same long term results.”
