With two weeks left in the financial year, Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has announced that in the 2015-16 year they have topped sales of 3Tn Yuan. For comparison, that’s roughly $463 billion.
And whilst that’s an astonishing figure that represents a 23% growth rate year on year, it does also demonstrate a slowing in growth that has been acknowledged by Alibaba executives. In the period before, year on year growth had been 43%. All told Alibaba’s sales volumes have tripled since 2012.
Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai says of the numbers: “Growth is meaningless unless it is sustainable. Thus, we have turned our focus to quality growth and broadening domestic consumption. While GMV (gross merchandise volume) is a proxy for scale, our focus on quality and sustainable growth means how we measure success is no longer dependent on a simplistic view of GMV growth.”
According to some reports, these numbers illustrate that Alibaba is now on track to become the biggest retailer in the world this year, taking the crown from Wal-Mart.
You can read more on Reuters.
2 Responses
I wonder if they will buy up the struggling ebay?
Why would they? ;O)