Alibaba’s sales grew by 40 per cent

Alibaba’s sales grew by 40 per cent with profits more than tripling as China’s legions of shoppers kept spending at the online retailer despite a broader economic slowdown. During the three-month period ended September 30, Jack Ma, founder and chairman stepped down from his formal roles at the company, leaving chief executive Daniel Zhang to steer Alibaba’s push into China’s hinterland managing from bricks and mortar retail to healthcare.

Yesterdays’ results could pave the way for a second listing in Hong Kong for the $460bn company. Alibaba’s sales rose to Rmb1119bn ($16.9bn) in its fiscal second quarter up 40 per cent from a year earlier and ahead of analysts’ expectations.

Net profit more than tripled to Rmb72.5bn for the quarter on the back of a one-time gain related to its stake in Ant Financial.

“Strong profit growth give us the business to fight. We’re going to be smart with how we spend our mone. We have set a goal for the near term to serve over 1bn consumers and achieve at least Rmb 10tn consumption by fiscal year 2024. Mr Zhang said.

Like Amazon in the US Alibaba has pushed into the market for running online computer systems for other companies. Its cloud revenue has grown upwards of 60 per cent each quarter  for the past 10 quarters and rose 64 per cent year on year in the latest period.

Alibaba’s US listed shares rose more than 2 per cent in early trading. The shares were held down by concern over a forced delisting in the US and the potential for US pension funds to divest.