Alibaba Group Holding

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Company Background

Alibaba Group, set up in 1999, is China's largest electronic commerce company. Its head office is in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Having grown into an enterprise handling a wide variety of businesses ranging from cloud services and finance to media, besides e-commerce, the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange last year.

Founder Jack Ma, who first used the Internet in the U.S. in the mid-1990s, created in 1999 a website to support e-commerce. His company had initially focused on business-to-business transactions, before opening the Taobao online shopping site for individual users in 2003.

Thanks to the rapid spread of the Internet and expanding consumer spending in China, the users of Taobao soared at a fast pace. Today, Taobao.com for consumer-to-consumer deals and Tmall for business-to-consumer are two pillars of Alibaba's operations. The number of annual active buyers on Alibaba sites has reached 350 million.

Increasingly, more online shoppers are shifting to smartphones. Alibaba is been pushing ahead with efforts to attract smartphone users primarily by improving the convenience of the AliPay online payment system. As a result, the mobile monthly active users of its sites have reached close to 300 million in number. The company intends to enhance its financial business with Alipay at the center as well as to step up its cloud, information technology and big data businesses.

The company raised around $20 billion through its initial public offering in New York in 2014. It is acquiring other companies with the money raised. In August this year, Alibaba bought the majority of new shares issued by China's second biggest retailer, Suning Commerce Group, for 28.3 billion yuan, becoming the second largest shareholder in Suning. In China, Tencent and other local rivals are reinforcing strategies to erode Alibaba's dominance in e-commerce.

After failing to pass university entrance exams twice, Jack Ma once gave up going higher education and worked as a driver. A self-made man, he enjoys strong popularity among Chinese.

Business Summary

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. engages in providing online and mobile marketplaces in retail and wholesale trade. It operates through the following business segments: Core Commerce; Cloud Computing; Digital Media and Entertainment; and Innovation Initiatives and Others. The Core Commerce segment comprises of platforms operating in retail and wholesale. The Cloud Computing segment consists of Alibaba Cloud, which offers elastic computing, database, storage and content delivery network, large scale computing, security, management and application, big data analytics, a machine learning platform, and other services provide for enterprises of different sizes across various industries. The Digital Media and Entertainment segment relates to the Youko Tudou and UC Browser business. The Innovation Initiatives and Others segment includes businesses such as AutoNavi, DingTalk, Tmall Genie, and others. The company was founded by Chung Tsai and Yun Ma on June 28, 1999 and is headquartered in Hangzhou, China.

Financial Highlights

Mar 2019	USD
Revenue	56,149.34M	56,149.34M
Gross Profit	24,142.44M	24,142.44M
Operating income	8,929.05M	8,929.05M
Income before tax	14,336.82M	14,336.82M
Net income	13,052.30M	13,052.30M
EBITDA	14,432.48M	14,432.48M
Diluted EPS	4.97	4.97
Dividends Per Share	0	0
Total Assets	143,615.51M	143,615.51M
Total liabilities	52,033.27M	52,033.27M
Total equity	73,257.64M	73,257.64M
Operating cash flow	22,495.10M	22,495.10M
	Currency in USD	Currency in USD

Historical Data

USD

	Mar 2015	Mar 2016	Mar 2017	Mar 2018	Mar 2019
Revenue	12,301.39M	15,903.10M	23,521.83M	37,762.20M	56,149.34M
Gross Profit	8,116.71M	10,040.48M	14,047.89M	20,657.05M	24,142.44M
Operating income	3,762.86M	4,650.03M	7,269.08M	10,654.07M	8,929.05M
Income before tax	5,218.29M	12,809.52M	8,921.24M	15,149.63M	14,336.82M
Net income	3,916.38M	11,235.92M	6,490.78M	9,654.58M	13,052.30M
EBITDA	4,475.56M	5,692.49M	9,377.19M	13,956.26M	14,432.48M
Diluted EPS	1.56	4.38	2.52	3.69	4.97
Dividends Per Share	0	0	0	0	0
Total Assets	41,267.98M	56,376.70M	73,547.54M	114,005.27M	143,615.51M
Total liabilities	15,704.72M	17,713.06M	26,508.45M	44,135.13M	52,033.27M
Total equity	23,525.71M	33,630.55M	40,897.00M	58,169.49M	73,257.64M
Operating cash flow	6,790.91M	8,936.54M	11,937.69M	18,886.83M	22,495.10M

	Mar 2015	Mar 2016	Mar 2017	Mar 2018	Mar 2019
Revenue	12,301.39M	15,903.10M	23,521.83M	37,762.20M	56,149.34M
Gross Profit	8,116.71M	10,040.48M	14,047.89M	20,657.05M	24,142.44M
Operating income	3,762.86M	4,650.03M	7,269.08M	10,654.07M	8,929.05M
Income before tax	5,218.29M	12,809.52M	8,921.24M	15,149.63M	14,336.82M
Net income	3,916.38M	11,235.92M	6,490.78M	9,654.58M	13,052.30M
EBITDA	4,475.56M	5,692.49M	9,377.19M	13,956.26M	14,432.48M
Diluted EPS	1.56	4.38	2.52	3.69	4.97
Dividends Per Share	0	0	0	0	0
Total Assets	41,267.98M	56,376.70M	73,547.54M	114,005.27M	143,615.51M
Total liabilities	15,704.72M	17,713.06M	26,508.45M	44,135.13M	52,033.27M
Total equity	23,525.71M	33,630.55M	40,897.00M	58,169.49M	73,257.64M
Operating cash flow	6,790.91M	8,936.54M	11,937.69M	18,886.83M	22,495.10M

Valuation Measures

Mar 2019
PER	36.06
ROA	10.13%
ROE	19.86%
Operating margin	15.90%
Profit margin	23.24%

Key executives

Executive Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yong Zhang
President & Director: John Michael Evans
CFO & Head-Strategic Investments: Wei Wu
Chief Technology Officer: Jian Feng Zhang
Vice President: Lei Wang

Shareholders

T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. (Investment Management) (2.7%)
The Vanguard Group, Inc. (1.9%)
Baillie Gifford & Co. (1.8%)
BlackRock Fund Advisors (1.8%)
SSgA Funds Management, Inc. (1.1%)
HSBC Global Asset Management (UK) Ltd. (1.0%)
Capital Research & Management Co. (Global Investors) (1.0%)
Invesco Advisers, Inc. (1.0%)
Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd. (Investment Management) (0.9%)
Fidelity Management & Research Co. (0.7%)

Contact Details

Website:http://www.alibabagroup.com
Address: 969 West Wen Yi Road, Yu Hang District, Hangzhou, 311121, China
Phone: +86.571.8502.2088

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Competitors

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Sogou, Inc. Sponsored ADR
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Qutoutiao, Inc. Sponsored ADR Class A
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Interpark Holdings Corporation
Booking Holdings Inc.
Etsy, Inc.
Hong Kong Television Network Ltd.
Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings Inc Class A
ChinaCache International Holdings Ltd. Sponsored ADR
TripAdvisor, Inc.
21Vianet Group, Inc. Sponsored ADR Class A
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Freelancer Ltd.
Eastern Media International Corporation

Last Updated on 22 Nov, 2019