While many investors ask what will happen to the mainland after the Olympics, we will also ask what Alibaba will focus on after it has announced its interim result last week.

To a certain extent, the remarks made by Alibaba chief executive officer David Wei and the result itself were aimed at easing concerns over where and how the China largest B2B website will be heading to:

Going forward, we expect the robust growth of our China marketplace to continue. The recent launches of a series of new products and services including ‘Winport’, ‘China TrustPass for Individuals’ and ‘Export-to-China’ will further expand our China marketplace and we are encouraged by the positive response these initiatives have received so far

Our China marketplace accounted for 34.0% of total revenue in the reporting period and surpassed 36.1% in the second quarter of 2008, a significant increase when compared to a 27.2% contribution to total revenue in the first half of 2007. This shows the growing importance of the China marketplace to our overall business development.

In line with Alibaba.com(1688) earlier slogan of “Back to Basic”, Mr Wei is steering his ship back, trying to capitalize on the foreseeable strong growth in China domestic market.

Alibaba.com (1688) reported earnings results for the second quarter and first half ended June 30, 2008.

It reported total revenue of RMB1,415.2 million in the first half of 2008, representing a 47.8% increase from the first half of 2007. The year-on-year growth was driven mainly by increases in the number of paying members of our combined marketplaces and in average spending per paying member of the China marketplace.

Alibaba.com (1688) had 368,006 paying members as of June 30, 2008, representing a 44.0% increase from the same period a year ago.

 

Interim Results 2008
Total Revenue	RMB 1415.2million
Revenue from China marketplace	RMB 481.6 million
Operating Profit	RMB 65.1 million
Net Income	RMB 697.2 million
Earning per share (EPS), basic and diluted	15.24 and 15.23 HK cents

 

 

Registered Users
Total no. of registered users on our marketplaces	32.5 million
No. registered users on international marketplace	5.6 million
No. registered users on China marketplace	26.9 million

 

 

Store Fronts
Total supplier storefronts on our marketplaces	3.7 million
Supplier storefronts on international marketplace	802,286
Supplier storefronts on China marketplace	2,968,328

 

 

Paying Members
Total no. of paying member	368,006
Gold Supplier	29,766
International Trust Pass	13,912
ChinaTrustPass	324,328

 

You can find a full report of the interim result here

 

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