拓展新業務領域 阿里巴巴營收大幅增長

HONG KONG — China’s economic growth is slowing, but its biggest online marketplaces are doing just fine.

香港——中國的經濟增長正在放緩，但它最大的在線市場表現良好。

Alibaba Group, China’s largest e-commerce company, reported strong revenue growth on Thursday as it continued to lure shoppers to its websites. The company, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, also earned more money from vendors, who pay to sell and advertise their goods on its sites.

週四，在繼續吸引購物者前往自己的網站同時，中國最大的電子商務公司阿里巴巴集團公佈了強勁的收入增長。在紐約證券交易所(New York Stock Exchange)上市的該公司來自賣家的收入也增加了。賣家付費在阿里巴巴的網站上銷售和推廣自己的商品。

The company said sales rose 59 percent in the first quarter to $4.8 billion. Its operating profit rose 71 percent to $1.3 billion.

該公司稱一季度銷售額增加59%，達48億美元（321.54億元人民幣）。營業利潤增加71%，達13億美元。

For many American investors, Alibaba is seen as a proxy for the health of the Chinese economy and the strength of its consumers. The company has outperformed the broader retail market in China. It has also been investing in the growth of e-commerce in the country — focusing on logistics and on rural areas where fewer people are online — so it can continue to grow even as the country’s economy slows.

阿里巴巴被很多美國投資者視爲中國經濟健康情況和消費者實力的代表。該公司的表現超過了中國整體零售市場。它也一直在投資鄉村地區的電商增長——集中在物流和網絡用戶更少的農村地區——以便在中國經濟放緩時，自己能夠繼續增長。

The company is also working hard to brace itself for a further slowdown in China, pushing out of its conventional online shopping business into cloud computing, entertainment through online video and gaming, and even a food delivery business. Those long-term efforts have had mixed results. Results this quarter, for instance, showed that the company’s smartphone-based food delivery business, Koubei, continued to burn cash competing with rivals.

該公司也在努力爲中國進一步放緩做好準備，從傳統的網購業務發展到雲計算，通過在線視頻和遊戲進軍娛樂業，甚至還拓展了送餐業務。這些長遠計劃的結果喜憂參半。比如，本季度的財報顯示，該公司基於智能手機的送餐公司口碑網仍在燒錢與對手競爭。

Yet other sectors have been more promising. Alibaba’s cloud computing service, which is similar to the one offered by Amazon, has quickly gained traction in China, where businesses have been relying on Alibaba for computing power.

不過其他一些領域的前景更喜人。阿里巴巴的雲計算服務——類似於亞馬遜(Amazon)提供的相關服務——迅速在中國得到認可。中國企業一直依賴阿里巴巴爲其提供計算能力。

Alibaba’s gross merchandise volume, a closely watched measure of the transactions on the company’s websites, grew 24 percent compared with the same period a year earlier, about the same pace as the prior quarter.

阿里巴巴的商品交易總額同比增加24%，增幅與前一個季度大致持平。這是一個受到密切關注的指標，衡量的是阿里巴巴網站上的交易情況。

Investors bid Alibaba’s shares up more than 2 percent in premarket trading on the results.

針對這一業績表現，投資者在盤前交易中將阿里巴巴的股價推高了逾2%。

The underlying assumption that slowing growth in China will eventually hurt Alibaba’s sales has focused more attention on its other businesses. During its recent investor day, Alibaba said it would start to offer more information on its efforts in sectors like entertainment and food delivery.

認爲中國增長放緩最終會影響到阿里巴巴銷售額的根本假設，把注意力更多地放在了該公司的其他業務上。在最近的投資者日上，阿里巴巴表示將開始提供更多有關其在娛樂和送餐等領域的行動的信息。

“We have already started to see early signs of business breakthroughs in new categories and some of its burgeoning growth assets,” Evan Zhou, a Credit Suisse analyst, wrote in a recent report.

“我們已經開始看到一些早期跡象顯示，它在新領域的業務取得突破，部分資產增長迅速，”瑞信(Credit Suisse)分析師埃文•周(Evan Zhou)在最近的一份報告中寫道。

Yet those new breakthroughs come with risk. In the cloud computing sector, Alibaba has to contend with foreign rivals, and it faces a domestic challenge from the search engine Baidu. Its food delivery business risks becoming a drain on earnings, as many similar companies fight to gain customers by offering big commissions to drivers.

但這些新的突破也伴隨着風險。在雲計算領域，阿里巴巴不得不與外國對手競爭，在國內也面臨着來自搜索引擎百度的挑戰。送餐公司可能會侵蝕它的收益，因爲很多類似的公司通過爲送餐員提供高額佣金的方式，來爭奪顧客。

Alibaba has also recently increased its focus on international expansion. While much of its efforts are centered on bringing foreign vendors to sell to Chinese consumers — and in turn spending marketing dollars on Alibaba’s platforms — the company has also made bets on e-commerce in neighboring developing markets.

阿里巴巴最近還加強了對國際擴張的關注。這方面的行動很大程度上是讓外國商家將商品賣給中國消費者，反過來把營銷經費投給阿里巴巴的平臺。與此同時，該公司也把賭注押在了鄰近的發展中市場上。

The company invested in the Indian commerce companies Paytm and Snapdeal, and this year, it made its largest overseas acquisition, paying $1 billion to take over Lazada, a popular Southeast Asian shopping website.

公司投資了印度的商務公司Paytm和Snapdeal。今年，阿里巴巴還出資10億美元，收購了東南亞頗受歡迎的購物網站Lazada。這是它規模最大的一筆海外收購。