Alibaba announced that its Cloud revenue business advanced 62 percent to $1.5 billion, crossing the 10 billion yuan sales level for the first time.
The Chinese e-commerce giant also disclosed that it had finalized its migration to its exclusive public Cloud for the latest quarter, a major achievement as the company can now point to its own business as a reference for prospective clients, a move that Daniel Zhang, Alibaba chief executive officer and chairman, initiated in the company's after-earnings conference with analysts.
In the post-earnings call, Zhang said that company believes Alibaba's core e-commerce Cloud migration is "a watershed event" that will also encourage other tech firms to embrace its public Cloud framework.
It is worth mentioning that Alibaba also cautioned that the current coronavirus wreaking havoc in mainland China could have adverse effects on its retail operations this year, but the company did not specifically note the Cloud element of the business.
Friday's sales disclosure places the Chinese e-commerce behemoth on a $6 billion US momentum, a decent fourth spot in the Cloud market stock competition. In its most recent sales report, Google Inc posted $2.5 billion in total profits, Microsoft disclosed $12.5 billion in combined operating system and infrastructure sales, and market leader Amazon Web Services reported $10 billion for the quarter.
As with Google, Alibaba is behind the market leaders, based on the latest figures by Synergy Research. The data was taken prior to Friday's after-hours session, but it remains an accurate estimate of the relative charts of the various tech firms.
In contrast, and in response to the outbreak in China, Zhang said they have mobilized the company's "ecosystem of forces in e-commerce and technology" in order to fully support the fight against the medical crisis, ensure supply of important necessities and roll out relief measures for merchants.
The company's yearly active customers on its China retail business hit the 711 million mark, a hike of 18 million from the 12-month period ending September 30, 2019. Alibaba's earnings from operations was pegged at $5.7 billion, an increase of almost 50 percent year-on-year.
Alibaba is shifting to a new era and a management team led by Zhang after charismatic founder Jack Ma quit in September as company leader as part of a succession years in the making.
Meanwhile, Wall Street market observers project that the Chinese online economy could emerge stronger as a result of the current outbreak, which is seen to bolster e-commerce at the expense of conventional retail branches as shoppers avoid stores.
