Alibaba’s international retail revenue grows with 178%

Alibaba is moving from being not only China’s e-commerce leader towards becoming a global behemoth. Not only did international retail reach a value of 1.34 billion yuan ($201 million), up 178.6% from 481 million yuan. The number of international brands choosing subsidiary Tmall for their China-launch is going through the roof.

Overall, Alibaba’s revenue grew 55% in the second quarter to 34.29bn yuan ($5.14bn), as is evident from the September Quarter 2016 results published on Wednesday. Alibaba claims to have close to 440mn active annual buyers. Most of the revenue is generated via the marketplaces Taobao and Tmall. The latter was recently chosen by Apple to launch the iPhone7 in China.

For the 'Global Shopping Festival' at November 11th, formerly known as a Chinese phenomenon dubbed 'Single's Day', Alibaba plans on leveraging its international power: The company has integrated an omni-channel shopping experience at more than 60,000 offline storefronts, including Uniqlo, Gap and Intime department store.

The release states: "This year’s 11.11 will be our most global ever with more than 11,000 international brands participating, including Burberry, Target, Maserati and Apple. We also introduced a new pilot program to help global merchants sell beyond China. Hong Kong and Taiwan are the first markets outside mainland China where this is available."

Next to e-commerce, Alibaba is active in cloud computing and hosts roughly 35% of websites in China. This strand of business generated a revenue amounting to 130% in Q2 to 1.493bn yuan ($224 million). The giant is also making moves into the entertainment sector, which evolved to be a rapid growth market for the company.