Beijing (PingWest)- Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced a strong financial result for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, beating analysts’ projection for both quarterly revenue and profit as its core commerce and cloud computing delivered double digit growth buoyed by strong recovery of China’s economy from coronavirus outbreak.

Hangzhou-based reported revenue of CNY153.6 billion in the first quarter of its new financial year, representing a year-over-year growth of 34%. Alibaba attribute this robust revenue growth to its core commerce retail and cloud computing business. This figure beats analysts’ consensus estimate of CNY148 billion.

Net income came in at CNY47.6 billion in the quarter ended June 30, surging 124 percent from CNY21.2 billion a year earlier. It also beat the consensus estimate of CNY36 billion.

“Alibaba delivered excellent results this past quarter. We were well positioned to capture growth from the ongoing digital transformation, which has been accelerated by the pandemic, in both consumption and enterprise operations,” said Daniel Zhang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group.

Splitting into business segments, Alibaba’s core commerce business rose 34% year-over-year to CNY133.32 billion thanks to record sales during the 6.18 shopping festival this year, boosted by big promotion and heavy discount to consumers who had shown a revenge consumption after Covid-19 lockdown.

Alibaba’s core China retail operations – led by Taobao Marketplace and Tmall – accounted for 66 percent of its total revenue in the June ended quarter, according to Alibaba.

Alibaba’s retail marketplace had 874 million mobile Monthly active users (MAUs) as of the end of June 2020. Apart from top-tier cities, Alibaba’s e-commerce marketplaces continue to acquire new users and consumer in rural and less-developed areas.

With new products offering such as Taobao Deals that was launched in March, 2020, Alibaba will enable merchants and manufacturers to better manage and use raw material and product inventories based on actual consumer demand, preferences. Taobao Deal has been growing rapidly since it was launched a updated version in March, 2020. Taobao Deals had approximately 40 million MAUs as of June 2020.

Cloud computing has become one of Alibaba’s fastest growing units beside its core e-commerce business, with cloud revenue up 59 per cent year on year to CNY12.34billion in the June ended quarter.

This robust growth in cloud computing businesses was primarily driven by increased revenue contribution from both our public cloud and hybrid cloud businesses, reflecting higher average revenue per customer.

In April, Alibaba Cloud announced it would invest CNY200 billion in its cloud infrastructure over the next three years, highlighting the importance of cloud business to its future growth.

“Our domestic core commerce business has fully recovered to pre-COVID-19 levels across the board, while cloud computing revenue grew 59% year-over-year,” said Alibaba’s Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu.

Alibaba’s entertainment businesses continue to lose money, but at a slower rate. Its digital and media sector, which range from operating browsers such as UC browsers for mobile devices to cinema ticket selling, saw revenues grow a modest 9% to CNY6.99 billion and losses narrowed by 38% to CNY2.02 billion.