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China's Alibaba beats quarterly revenue, profit estimates

Sales from Alibaba's core commerce business jumped 34% to 133.32 billion yuan ($19.27 billion) in the three months to June
Sales from Alibaba's core commerce business jumped 34% to 133.32 billion yuan ($19.27 billion) in the three months to June

China's Alibaba Group Holding has beaten quarterly revenue and profit estimates, as its core commerce and cloud computing businesses continued to grow following China's emergence from the coronavirus lockdown. 

Sales from the commerce business alone jumped 34% to 133.32 billion yuan ($19.27 billion) in the quarter ending in June.

This was slightly slower than a year earlier but still enough to prod its shares higher after the results. 

The company's stock has soared 23% this year as investors globally poured money into technology businesses seen as "stay-at-home" winners from the pandemic.

Alibaba said it had bounced back from a hit to Chinese consumer spending at the start of this year. 

"Our domestic core commerce business has fully recovered to pre Covid-19 levels across the board, while cloud computing revenue grew 59% year-over-year," chief financial officer Maggie Wu said in a statement. 

Alibaba is one of the big businesses seen as a potential target if President Donald Trump makes further moves against Chinese companies.

This follows restrictions on Chinese-owned video platform TikTok and Tencent's WeChat. 

"Today, we face uncertainties from not only the global pandemic but also increasing tensions between US and China," the company's chief executive Daniel Zhang said.

"We are closely monitoring the latest shift in US government policies towards Chinese companies which is a very fluid situation," he added. 

On Monday, JD.com beat analysts' estimates for quarterly sales, while Pinduoduo is expected to report second-quarter results tomorrow. 

Alibaba's net income attributable to ordinary shareholders more than doubled to 47.59 billion yuan from 21.25 billion yuan. 

Excluding items, the company earned 14.82 yuan per American depository share (ADS) versus expectations of 13.78 yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Revenue was 153.75 billion yuan compared to a forecast 147.77 billion yuan.