Alibaba first-quarter revenue rises 61 percent, beats estimates

BEIJING (Reuters) - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the world's biggest online retailer, said on Thursday first-quarter revenue rose 61 percent, beating analysts' estimates, driven by growth in its core e-commerce business.

Net income attributable to shareholders, however, fell 41 percent to 8.7 billion yuan ($1.27 billion), or 3.3 yuan per share, due to one-off costs related to share-based compensation for Ant Financials' recent fundraising.

Revenue reached 80.9 billion yuan in April-June, versus the 80.7 billion yuan average of 28 analyst estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue growth has accelerated since Alibaba's 2014 stock exchange listing, but aggressive investment in offline retail, logistics and cloud computing has shrunk its profit margin to an all-time low.

 

($1 = 6.8740 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Catherine Cadell; Additional reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)