Alibaba Group Holdings announced financial results for the quarter and physical year ending March 31 2021.
The group reported revenue of RMB717,289 million equivalent to US$109,480 million an increase of 41 per cent year-over-year while the Alibaba ecosystem reached a 1billion customer milestone across its global marketplace. The china marketplace accounted for about 891 million subscribers, digital media and entertainment and consumers outside china 240 million, actual annual consumers for Alibaba’s China retail marketplace 811 an increase of up to 85 million from period ending March 31st 2020.
“Alibaba achieved a historic milestone of one billion annual active consumers globally in the fiscal year ended March 2021,” said Daniel Zhang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group. “Our overall business delivered strong growth on a healthy foundation, with the Alibaba Ecosystem generating a record US$1.2 trillion in GMV during this fiscal year.
Alibaba says the achievements were built on top of clear value propositions that we offer to consumers and merchants. We remain very excited about the growth of China’s consumption economy, which is benefiting from the acceleration of digitalization in all aspects of life and work.
“We surpassed our annual revenue guidance in the fiscal year 2021 by achieving strong organic revenue growth of 32% excluding the consolidation of the newly acquired Sun Art. This was driven by the robust performance of our core commerce businesses as well as the continued growth of Alibaba Cloud. We will continue to focus on customer experience and value creation through innovation, as we pursue our mission to make it easy to do business anywhere in the digital era.”
Our adjusted EBITDA grew 25% year-over-year while we increased investments in new businesses and key strategic growth areas. We expect to generate over RMB930 billion in revenue in the fiscal year 2022. Given the market potential and our proven profit and cash flow generation capabilities, we plan to use all of our incremental profits and additional capital in the fiscal year 2022 to support our merchants and invest in new businesses and key strategic areas that will help us increase consumer wallet share and penetrate into new addressable markets.” said Maggie Wu, Chief Financial Officer of Alibaba Group.
Alibaba’s strong Gross Merchant Value (GMV) and user growth on its China retail marketplaces majorly reflects on the companies strategic focus on less developed cities and towns and broadening offerings of products and services to meet diverse consumption demand.
Overall online physical goods GMV, excluding unpaid orders, grew 21 per cent year-over-year in the fiscal year 2021, driven primarily by the fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) and home furnishing categories, and 33 per cent year-over-year in the March quarter driven primarily by the apparel and home furnishing categories. Tmall online physical goods GMV, excluding unpaid orders, grew by 26 per cent year-over-year while Taobao online physical goods GMV, excluding unpaid orders, grew even faster as SME merchants recovered from the pandemic.
“Our app platforms appeal to a growing and increasingly diverse consumer base at various income levels as well as present different purchase use cases for the same consumer. Taobao Deals offers value-for-money products for the price-conscious consumer and achieved rapid growth in the fiscal year 2021.”
Taobao Deals’ annual active consumers reached over 150 million for the twelve months ended March 31, 2021. Taobao Deals is an offering that attracts incremental users, especially in less developed areas. We have seen a robust retention rate given its clear value-for-money proposition and its expanding product selections in different categories.
