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Alibaba Posts Highest Growth In A Year Despite Sluggish China

China e-commerce giant Alibaba ( BABA ) turned in a quarterly earnings report early Thursday that largely eased concerns of slowing performance, despite a sluggish Chinese economy. Alibaba reported revenue of $3.75 billion for its fiscal Q4 ended March 31, beating the Wall Street consensus of $3.58 billion. Sales rose 39% in local currency year over year, the company’s highest growth rate in the past four quarters. Earnings per share minus items rose 88% to 33 cents, but that was far below the consensus of 55 cents. Costs associated with new businesses initiatives and rising logistics and order-fulfillment costs weighed on the company. Still, Alibaba stock was up nearly 4% in early trading in the stock market today , near 79. The stock is up 35% from a seven-month low of 59.25 touched on Feb. 9. Alibaba credited the revenue beat to strong growth in mobile users, active buyers and transactions on its China e-commerce platforms. “Our focus on long-term strategic priorities — globalization, rural expansion, building a world-class cloud computing business and creating a comprehensive media and entertainment platform — has laid a strong foundation for future growth,” Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said in the earnings release. Alibaba competes with JD.com ( JD ), Baidu ( BIDU ) and Tencent Holdings ( TCEHY ) in various segments of China’s Internet economy. JD is China’s largest online direct-sales retailer, Tencent dominates in messaging and gaming, and Baidu is China’s search leader. The four are the largest Internet companies in China and have been investing aggressively in new areas to spur growth. JD is scheduled to report earnings before the market open on May 9. Alibaba reported gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $115 billion, slightly edging the consensus of $112 billion and up 24% year over year. Transactions through mobile devices accounted for 73% of GMV volume. It reported annual active buyers of 423 million, up 16 million from the prior quarter and up 21% year over year. Monthly mobile active users reached 410 million, an increase of 17 million from the prior quarter and up 42% year over year. Alibaba’s cloud computing and Internet infrastructure business continued its rapid expansion, with revenue jumping 175% year over year to $165 million. That’s above the 126% growth achieved in the prior quarter.

GoDaddy Q1 Revenue Tops Views On Strong International Growth

GoDaddy ( GDDY ) stock was up in premarket trading Thursday, after the Internet registrar late Wednesday posted Q1 revenue that topped estimates and reported a lower-than-expected loss. The Web-hosting services provider and Internet domain-name registrar firm also  slightly raised its 2016 guidance for revenue and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). GoDaddy stock was up 2% in premarket trading, near 31, as it attempts to regain its 50-day moving average line. GoDaddy stock broke out of a cup-with-handle base at 33.13 on April 1, but shares have slipped since, hurt by the announcement of a secondary stock offering. Even with a 2% rise, GoDaddy stock is more than 6% below the buy point. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based GoDaddy said it lost 15 cents in Q1, with revenue rising 15% to $433.7 million. Analysts had modeled a 16-cent per share loss and revenue of $430 million. GoDaddy’s core business is selling and managing Internet domain names. It has expanded into website-hosting services for small businesses. Rivals include  Neustar ( NSR ) ,  Web.com ( WWWW ),  Endurance International ( EIGI ) and  Wix.com ( WIX ). “We view these results as intrinsically impressive for the largest competitor in the space. And we continue to believe that product additions and international expansion will fuel future growth,” said Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC Capital, said in a research report. International revenue rose nearly 17% to $112.7 million. GoDaddy forecast current-quarter revenue of $450 million at the midpoint of its guidance, up 14% from the year-earlier period and in line with consensus estimates. For the year, it increased revenue guidance to $1.84 billion at its midpoint from its earlier $1.83, vs. consensus estimates of $1.836. GoDaddy said it expects 2016 EBITDA of $409 million at its midpoint, up from earlier guidance of $405 million. GoDaddy has a weak IBD Composite Rating of 54 out of a possible 99. GoDaddy stock fell in early April after GoDaddy announced a proposed class A common stock offering of 16.5 million shares. Selling stockholders include entities affiliated with big investment firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co . , Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures, as well as YAM Special Holdings, which is owned by GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons. The company itself will receive no proceeds from the offering.

Alibaba Stock Rises As Strong Revenue Growth Trumps Earnings Miss

Alibaba Group’s fourth-quarter revenue rose a better-than-expected 39 percent after China’s biggest e-commerce company drew in more users and boosted services to merchants on its platforms. Sales jumped to 24.2 billion yuan ($3.7 billion) in the three months ended March, Alibaba ( BABA ) said. That compares with the 23.2 billion-yuan average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Adjusted earnings-per-share were 3.02 yuan compared with analyst projections for 3.52 yuan. Alibaba’s platforms, which link buyers and sellers, hit a 3 trillion yuan milestone of goods sold as the company continues to expand even as the Chinese economy grows at the slowest pace in 25 years. The online emporium is making more from mobile advertisements, deepening its push into rural domestic regions and branching out overseas to boost transactions. “Alibaba is still growing very nicely and sustaining very high margins in the face of the concerns about Chinese consumers and the face of competition,” said Gil Luria, an analyst with Wedbush Securities Inc. “It’s good results for Alibaba and it seems like their business is holding up.” Net income rose 85 percent to 5.3 billion yuan, just shy of the 5.4 billion-yuan average of estimates. Affiliate Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group, which owns Alipay, incurred a net loss after spending to drive user growth, the company said Thursday. Shares of Alibaba rose more than 4 percent in pre-market trading. The stock has dropped 6.7 percent this year compared with a 1.4 percent advance in the NYSE Composite Index. Revenue on Alibaba’s Chinese retail e-commerce platforms jumped 41 percent, driving growth in spending by merchants on the company’s marketing services. Commissions accounted for about a third of that. Alibaba has pulled out the stops to get its e-commerce platforms in front of villagers, setting up free Internet-equipped computers and working with local officials to train potential buyers and sellers. It had a presence in 12,000 villages across the country by the end of January, out of about 600,000. That effort to diversify the business comes as Alibaba is simultaneously trying to tap more of the 620 million Chinese who access the Internet from their smartphones and tablets. “The company was able to better monetize on selling advertisements to merchants,” Marie Sun, an analyst at Morningstar Investment Service, said before the earnings. “As the economy growth slows, it seems that merchants are more willing to place ads with bigger platforms like Alibaba that have a wider reach of customers.” The cloud computing business almost tripled revenue to more than 1 billion yuan and the business now has more than half a million paying customers.