Keep your eyes on the upcoming earnings release from Hong Kong listed Alibaba.com as this is the company’s first ever announcement and should provide insight into sales trends and the possible mergers & acquisitions they keep making reference to.
Alibaba.com’s investor relations site.
Alibaba to announce 2007 Full Year Financial Results
Date: 18 March 2008 (Tuesday)
Time: After the close of the Hong Kong stock market
I will update this post after the release.
UPDATE - Despite the fact that Alibaba.com’s stock has fallen 44% this year (nearly 21% today alone), their first earnings release figures are impressive.
- Strong growth of revenue by 59% to RMB2,163 million, mainly attributable to the increase in paying members and average spending per paying member
- Profit attributable to equity owners increased by 340% to RMB968 million
- Earnings per share increased by 358% to HK$20.41 cents
- Total registered users increased 40% to 27.6 million
- Total storefronts increased 43% to 3.0 million
- Total paying members grew by 39% to over 305,000
The profit growth is amazing and is attributed to increased sales of their online marketing services to mainly manufacturer’s in China as well as a reduction in overall operating costs.
The profit of RMB968 million beats Goldman Sachs’ forecast of RMB947 million and Cazenove’s of RMB889 million.
I would imagine that there will be more than a few buyers of Alibaba.com (1688) stock at tomorrow’s opening given it is now trading at HK$12.20 or HK$1.30 below its IPO price.
Download the Earnings Release and Presentation.
The one major component missing from the release was any substantial evidence of true expansion overseas (Hong Kong and Macau is not overseas guys!) via strategic sales efforts, partnerships or acquisition, which they will need to do to continue this expected growth trend.
We welcome your comments on Alibaba.com and your thoughts on this latest release.
I will soon post comments on Alibaba.com’s parent, Alibaba Group, who has an even more impressive growth story and continues to be the best positioned company in the world to benefit from internet/e-commerce growth in China.
