阿里巴巴持續增長的背後

Alibaba likes to advertise its grocery stores. That may puzzle investors, who prefer to focus on the group’s manic revenue growth rather than vegetable margins at its Hema supermarkets. But it is worth remembering that the group ultimately deals in data, not durians.

阿里巴巴(Alibaba)喜歡爲其食品雜貨商店做廣告。這可能會讓投資者感到困惑，他們更願意關注該集團瘋狂的收入增長，而不是其盒馬鮮生(Hema)超市的蔬菜利潤率。但我們有必要記住，阿里巴巴最終經營的是數據，而不是榴蓮。

True to form, the Chinese ecommerce company reported a 61 per cent increase in quarterly sales to Rmb55bn ($8.3bn) on Thursday. But margins slipped; before interest, tax and depreciation they were 42 per cent, down 5 percentage points on the previous year. Operating in the real world is expensive.

不出所料地，這家中國電商集團週四公佈，季度營收同比增長61%，至550億元人民幣（合83億美元）。但利潤率下滑，調整後息稅攤銷前利潤(EBITA)利潤率42%，同比下滑1個百分點。實體運營的成本是高昂的。

Still, offline operations such as grocery stores or vending machines for cars, are experiments in businesses that could ultimately allow the company to collect even more information. They are still small beer next to the core business of renting digital infrastructure to merchants and delivery “partners” to facilitate commerce and consumption. Merchants can use the insights so generated to bid for favourable placement on ecommerce websites like Taobao or Tmall. This activity contributes 86 per cent of revenues.

然而，生鮮食品超市或汽車自動販賣機等線下業務屬於業務嘗試，可能最終讓該公司得以收集更多信息。與向商戶和快遞“合作伙伴”出租數字基礎設施、促進商業和消費的核心業務相比，這些顯得微不足道。商戶可以利用由此洞悉的信息在淘寶(Taobao)或天貓(Tmall)等電商網站競購有利的鋪位。這些業務佔到了阿里巴巴營收的86%。

Alibaba is a privately owned company, but has nevertheless become a sort of national champion. Its business model is directly aligned with the state’s plans for a more innovative and consumption driven economy. Western social media groups can only dream of being able to collect similarly detailed spending and behavioural data. The group’s servers contain a trove of accurate and timely information about the state of the Chinese economy that is far superior to the statistics that low-level bureaucrats submit. And due to its purely commercial focus Alibaba does not risk running afoul of China’s stringent censorship rules.

阿里巴巴是一家民營企業，卻變成了類似國家冠軍企業的巨擘。其業務模式與政府打造更多由創新和消費拉動的經濟的計劃完全一致。西方社交媒體集團只能夢想着能夠收集如此詳盡的支出和行爲數據了。阿里巴巴的服務器含有大量有關中國經濟狀況的準確且及時的信息，遠遠優於低層官員提交的統計數據。由於只關注商業，阿里巴巴沒有與中國嚴格的審查規定發生衝突的風險。

A captive market and a nod from the party all but assure its continued growth. Foreign markets will be much more tricky. But when you are already top dog in the world’s biggest retail market, that is a worry for another day.

阿里巴巴對市場的控制，再加上共產黨的點頭支持，幾乎保證了阿里巴巴的持續增長。外國市場要困難得多。但如果你已經是這個世界最大零售市場的領頭羊了，那麼這種擔心就是以後的事情了。

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