Alibaba's Q3 Top-And-Bottom Line Beat Sends Stock Up

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA) were trading higher by more than 5 percent at $73.25 early Thursday morning after the company reported its third quarter results.

Alibaba earned $0.99 per share in its third quarter on revenue of $5.33 billion. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.93 per share on revenue of $5.08 billion.

Annual active buyers on Alibaba's China retail marketplaces rose by 21 million from the prior quarter to 407 million. The company's mobile monthly active user base rose 47 million from the prior quarter to 393 million.

Gross merchandise volume (GMV) transacted on Alibaba's China retail marketplaces rose 23 percent year-over-year to RMB964 million ($149 million), while mobile transactions accounted for 68 percent of total GMV.

"Alibaba Group had an outstanding quarter, reaching a milestone of over 400 million annual active buyers and continuing our unrivaled leadership in mobile. Our proven ability to deliver an unparalleled consumer experience and to help merchants attract, engage and retain buyers will drive future growth in our core business," said Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba. "We remain focused on our top strategic priorities, including global imports, rural expansion, increasing our footprint in first-tier Chinese cities and building a world-class cloud computing business."

"We had excellent results this quarter. We achieved impressive revenue growth as we are increasingly monetizing the user activity on our marketplaces, particularly on mobile devices. In this quarter, revenue grew 32 percent year-over-year and China retail marketplace revenue grew 35 percent year-over-year," said Maggie Wu, Chief Financial Officer of Alibaba Group. "Meanwhile, we generated strong free cash flow of US$3.7 billion this quarter. The fundamental strength of our core business gives us the confidence to invest in our strategic priorities."