Does a leopard change its spots? With Alibaba, investors have increasing cause to hope so. Results for the year to March, released yesterday ahead of the attempted second listing of the Chinese ecommerce behemoth, are impressive – much better, in fact, than the first time around.
The worst that can be said of the numbers is that top-line growth slowed. This is nit-picking, however: Alibaba’s $8bn of revenues were still up 52 per cent on the prior year. Customer numbers up a tenth imply a healthy increase in spend per user.
And if that is not enough to get virgin investors excited, Alibaba showed impressive operating leverage. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation grew by 85 per cent as margins increased from 48 per cent in 2013 to 59 per cent in 2014.